A Shipwright Worth Her Salt
by DistantStorm
Summary: An exploration of Amanda Holliday's character through her interactions with those close to her, starting with her first interaction with a guardian and progressing through at least the events of the D2 campaign. **Updated weekly on Saturdays & Cross-posted to AO3.**
1. Little Scrapper Girl

"I know you're there."

A scuffle. A small, shadowed figure comes out from around the damaged concrete pillar of his shelter.

"Uhh, I think your radio is broken."

He drops the gun he's got pointed at her head to a less threatening position, holstering it on his belt. His ghost brushes the edge of his consciousness, alerting him that she's alone. No identity in any database in the fledgling city. Likely a newer refugee. She doesn't seem too startled by the gun pointed at her, instead staring at the fizzling exposed wires of his radio scanner.

Warily, she crouches low and approaches. "Are you a guardian working on the wall? To keep the bad guys out?"

He nods. "And you are?"

"Someone who can fix that," she says, little hands already trying to pull the radio out of his.

"This is official Vanguard equipment."

"It's still 'ficially broken," She drawls. "You got any food?"

He chuckles. She's not the first to come around asking for food. "If you're hungry, I will feed you." He lifts the radio up above her head. "But this is not a toy for little girls." At her sulking pout, one corner of his mouth curves upward. "Broken or not."

He's heating up two rations of stew over a small thermal cookfire when he hears the triple thuwip-thuwip-thuwip of Fallen gunfire. The girl bites her lip when it trembles, and he immediately turns off the burner, the orange glow fading into black. The only thing she can see are his eyes, glowing electric blue in the dark.

"Take cover in the corner furthest from the windows and do not attempt to move from this building. Be silent. I will return shortly." He shoulders a much larger gun than the one at his belt, and she blinks up at him owlishly. "Everything will be fine," he promises, as an afterthought, already at the doorway. "Do not worry."

She spends the majority of the night listening to the sounds of gunfire, creeping out of her hiding spot only once, to procure the broken radio lying forgotten on the floor beside the burner. The most recent shots fired were far away, and she hopes that the guardian will stop their enemies and come back soon. Her stomach is hurting and she doesn't want to eat the man's food without him.

She traces the sigil on the radio in the dark, feeling the straight lines that contrast with the round, badge-like shape of the logo itself. Without really thinking about it, she's taken to fixing the radio, deft fingers untangling and righting the frayed wires. She reaches for her belt and pulls out a small soldering tool the size of a pen, relinking them immediately thereafter. Carefully checking the volume to prevent from giving away her location to any lurking enemies, she flicks it on. The static is a balm for her nerves, the voices across the air sounding cool and collected like the soldier she was attempting to get a meal from.

She drifts off to sleep against her will just before dawn, a combination of hunger and exhaustion. The radio drones on in static, the soldiers carrying on in their communications.

A low, waspish sound jolts her awake less than half an hour later, her aching body curling in on itself. She chances a look, her eyes downcast and she feels like her body has been doused in icy water.

There's four of them.

They're in the room with her.

She forces her body to go slack, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid the enemies' notice. Their chatter became louder and more hostile sounding, until a wraithlike bellow from the leader (she assumed, her eyes were scrunched closed in an obviously failing attempt to play possum) silences them.

Her fingers find purchase on the radio's knobs and she thinks up a prayer to the Traveler, to her Ma and Pa, to anyone or anything that is feeling particularly inclined to help her.

 _Save me,_ she pleads. _Please, please, help me get out of this._

She knows that if she attempts to make radio contact that they'll shoot her before she can utter two words. It's been a few moments though, and none of them have shot her yet so maybe she can use how little of a threat she is to her advantage. At least to attempt to escape. And she doesn't hear anyone else around, so she's pretty sure that guardian she met earlier was either pulled far away from her location or that he's reported back to whatever guardians report to (he said somethin' about a Vanguard?) and forgotten her entirely. Something in her gut sours at that. The quiet, strong man she encountered earlier today doesn't seem like the forgetting type. He seems straight-laced and honor-bound. She wants to still like him on the other side of this mess.

Slowly, silently, she opens her right eye a crack and assesses the situation. If it weren't so dire, she'd give them an earful, as the strange-looking aliens are slurping at what was supposed to have been her dinner and chattering loudly about it. Her eyes darken at the realization that they're either convinced that she's dead, or maybe they have some compassion in their veins (assuming they're built the same) and won't murder a little girl like her in cold blood. She scoots slowly to the base of what used to be a stairwell to the upstairs but now goes to open sky. They still haven't noticed her movements.

She continues her micromovements until he's very nearly out of sight, her green eyes still half lidded, in case they look at her. Once she makes it the two feet over to the stairs, she knows she has to stand if she's ever going to get out of her invaded shelter. The radio static will fade and the stairs will creak until she slips out the window she came in. It's a dangerous plan.

The little girl inhales deeply through her nose and exhales silently.

Amanda Holliday is used to danger. These walls they're building are supposed to keep people safe from stuff like this, but she was born in the wilds where there were no walls and even fewer shelters. She feels the smirk on her face and knows her Ma'd be proud. She ain't gonna let these fallen get her. She's gonna get outta here.

Without giving herself time to think, she springs up, one hand clutching the radio. She bolts up the stairs and has one leg out the window frame when an icy cold clawed hand grabs at her other leg, slashing through her grimy, frayed pants and lacerating her calf. She grits her teeth and kicks hard, all the while twisting the radio knobs until a loud blaring sound is emitted. She pushes the radio in the direction of what she assumes is her assailant's ear and he recoils, giving her just enough time to flop out of the window and fall, landing in the bushes below.

The air leaves her lungs all at once, but she forces herself not to panic and breathe. She's got to move and quick, because now she knows they'll hurt her, based on the gashes on her legs. She gasps a breath of cold, damp air and pushes herself up into shaky legs before moving away quickly as they'd allow.

It's almost morning, and she can see the edges of light at the horizon, a faded orangish purple color that at least gives her the ability to see where she's going. There's thick brush at the end of one of the war-torn streets and she realizes that she's probably better off in the bramble than any of these dilapidated buildings.

She makes a wide loop around a block and screeches to a halt. They've fanned out to try and catch her, and she's all but run directly into the Fallen Captain and the barrel of their rifle. Two of their Dregs fan out on either side, and she's sure the other two are somewhere in the vicinity.

Her eyes widen and she turns back in the other direction, heart pounding and chest heaving with both panic and exertion. The others aren't behind her, so she pushes her right foot hard against the crumbling blacktop in an attempt to build up speed.

Something she can't see trips her about ten meters away from the Captain and she hits the ground, skids a bit further, crying out. He laughs in his strange synthesizer-esque tongue, the sound of his armored boots clacking against the pavement almost as loud as her heartbeat in her ears as he approaches her.

She pushes her scuffed palms under herself and tries to get up, but there is an invisible force that assaults her side with a pain that burns unlike any other kick she's ever felt, and it nudges her none too gently into her back. Her jacket is smoldering from the contact, and as she looks up, electric pulses and the stench of ether burn her eyes and lungs as the other two Fallen appear out of thin air. Stealth Vandals, she remembers them being called. They crow at her menacingly and she feels her lip tremble against her will. The Captain still approaches, taking their time.

"I don't got nothin' y'all would want!" She screams, fists clenched tightly against the ground. "No weapons, no glimmer, no food!"

The Captain pauses, and she thinks maybe they understand her language, but it chatters to its subordinates and they step back as their leader raises the rifle at their prey.

"Don't kill me! I'm just a li'tle girl! I can't do nothin' to ya!" Her eyes scrunch shut and she sobs.

The reply from her enemy sounds like Fallen-speak for ' _Not yet, but someday you could_ ,' and the rifle's aim at her chest does not waver. Tears cascade down her face in hot, angry rivulets, but she opens her eyes to face her fate like she knew her Ma and Pa would tell her to, if they hadn't met a similar fate.

She feels like life has become slow motion as the Fallen squeezes the trigger: two things happen at once.

A shot is fired and a large figure jumps to the ground from a building behind the Captain, fist first.

The ground beneath her lights up blue and wisps of warm current seem to buzz under her aching fists in a way that's practically soothing. The Fallen scream in agony, the Captain's subordinates vaporizing from the ground up. The Captain misses their shot, barely grazing the side of her torso with a painful but non-lethal blow.

Amanda's face lights up in awe at sight of the guardian from earlier. His armor barely looks scuffed, and his face is contorted in rage as the Captain turns toward him, their gun looking to make contact with the new enemy. The guardian's fist glows blue and he leaps forward, punching the ground twice at the feet of the last Fallen enemy, and it screams again, firing shots that bounce off of his armor like pebbles. Emptying their clip, the enemy brandishes a dagger and moves to advanced, despite looking rather worse for wear.

Zavala bellows, "Your kind made a mistake the second you entered this place. This is not, and will not ever be your domain." He steps forward and easily disarms the Fallen team's leader, landing the killing blow with the Captain's own knife. They screech as they perish, but Amanda does not look concerned. She's too busy pushing herself to her feet and running toward him.

"Are you unha-" Her little hands are touching his and the amount of concern in her eyes practically steals his breath from his lungs. She turns his palms over in his hands and looks up at him after a moment of intense inspection.

"How are your hands still in one piece?" She looks skeptical, but very, very relieved. "If I had done that mine'd be broke," She continues in a smaller voice.

He can't help but give her a little smile. "I am guardian. I have.. abilities that regular humans do not."

"Oh," she accepts, and the Awoken can't help but feel a bit relieved that he does not have to go into a fuller explanation. "How'd you find me?"

"There was a report of a scout radio tuned to the emergency relay frequency that happened to be assigned to myself. They have location tracking equipment in them. I take it you fixed the radio when I was called away?"

She nods. "Got lucky that that's what I tuned it to. Just wanted to spook 'em," She admits bashfully. "Needed to get outta that house with 'em crawling all over in'it."

Speaking of, the titan looks in all directions before speaking again. "We will need to get moving. There shouldn't be many more, but I am required to report in, and you cannot stay out here if the enemy has a way to get in." He turns her around and guides her in the direction of the civilian camp, where he will inevitably drop her off. She reluctantly follows. "What were you doing out this far," he asks after a moment or two of watching her dirty shoes scuff the pavement.

"Scrappin.'"

"For?"

"Turn in good stuff, 'n they feed ya," she says with a shrug. "Shank shells, ammo, metals, wiring, stuff that ya can use to fix other stuff."

"Your parents don't worry?" He immediately senses that he's asked the wrong question, because she doesn't respond for a long while, and there's a nagging feeling in the back of his brain he can't shake.

She finally spoke, and it was in a whisper he strained to hear. "Ma died a coupl'a years back. Pa died few months ago, 'fore we got here." She looks up at the understanding look on his face. "Been scrappin' since before all that though, this ain't anything out of the ordinary, 'cept it's easier to hide out there when they come after ya," she gestures toward the fledgling wall and the wilderness outside it.

He quirked an eyebrow at that. The little girl had a very near miss with death, and she seemed to process the more frightening situations she was exposed to with little pomp and circumstance. It was an impressive thing, in his eyes, though also terribly sad. "You are one brave little girl -" He pauses and looks down at her. She never did tell him her name.

"Amanda," She replies. "Amanda Holliday."

He stops to turn toward her, kneeling so that she comes up to the middle of his chest instead of his thigh. "Zavala," He says in kind, extending a hand.

Her gaze is drawn to the swirling light under his skin, but she reaches out without hesitation, her palm fully engulfed in his larger one as they shake hands. "Thank you for saving me, Zavala," She whispers bashfully.

"The pleasure is all mine, Miss Holliday. Thank _you_ for fixing my radio."

They trudge along for a while more before the titan reaches into a pouch at his waist and pulls out the scuffed but functional radio. He hands it to her and she beams, examining her earlier handiwork. The radio has definitely seen better days, but she figures he knew that. She hands it back to him. "Y'know, those Fallen guys were scary, but you 'n that glowing fist trick are way more terrifying. 'M glad you're on our side."


	2. Mechanic For Hire

He leaves the large hunk of bread and container to go with it wrapped in a piece of cloth and hidden in a nook she had pointed out to him as he passes through to head out beyond the walls for a patrol. He'll check it when he gets back, and as it's been the last few times, the little crevice will be void of all food, the container washed and clean with only a crumb or two on the cloth he's wrapped it in.

It's barely enough for a little girl to get by on, and he doesn't make it there for long stretches at a time, but he hopes that she's thriving, since he hasn't seen her in person since leaving her at the refugee camp months ago.

It's weeks later that he happens upon it again, and with a bit more time to spare. He can't help but quirk an eyebrow at the large piece of a Fallen pike that's hidden beneath a large, tattered tarp inside the bombed out shelter when he makes his way inside. He lifts the faded cover away and stares down at it. It's a larger chunk of engine block, and there's some discarded circuitry on the ground around it. Part of the ether tank is under it, and he realizes she's probably made some type of skid to get it into this makeshift shelter of hers. Most civilians didn't enjoy living in the skeletal ruins of what once was, but she seemed to thrive away from prying eyes.

She's a tinkerer, he learned. There's little things scattered about the crumbling countertops of what he assumes was a garage or kitchenette. Discarded and reclaimed tools, bits of wire and metal, screws and bolts everywhere. He investigates the one cupboard that has a door hanging lopsidedly from it and discovers she's created a bunk from the cupboard. She's small, and the cupboard is likely too small, but he assumes she's making due, since there's not much of a roof left on the building to begin with.

There's a sketchbook under a dirty blanket, and he flips it open to see detailed drawings of all sorts of machinery. The bits of the pike have been broken down, with annotated explanations in steady scrawl across the edges of the pages, as well as a rudimentary sparrow, the typical convoy truck that pulls wagons of refugees, and even some older vehicles he's only seen the husks of in his journey through the EDZ.

On the third to last page is a diagram of the scout radio she repaired for him in their first meeting. To say he's impressed with her observations is an understatement. When he sets down the book where he found it, he hears a cough behind her.

"Do ya always go through my stuff when ya come by?"

A brief flit of embarrassment crosses his face before his stoic, business-like demeanor reigns it in. He makes a non-committal hum and she huffs, blowing stringy blond hair out of her face before plopping on the ground in front of him and slinging her pack off. She yanks it open, and pulls out a bagged bundle before dumping everything else onto the ground with a loud clatter. A lot of it is fallen tech, but some of it are pieces of guardian weaponry, badly damaged, as well as a radio that looks even worse than the one that sits in on the shelf above the bunk in his barracks. Saladin had insisted he be outfitted with a better comm as his influence grew over the newer guardians.

"Ya need anything fixed up?" She asks after some time spent organizing her finds, lighting a small, dented lantern to cast light on them. Her head lifts and she meets his eyes when he doesn't answer her.

He blinks at her, shaking his head without sound and his ghost pops out of thin air between them, whirling and chittering as she spins around the girl who looks up in surprise. "Hi there," Amanda says shyly. The ghost bobs in front of her, shell spinning as if to indicate that her focus was narrowing.

"You again," The reply comes, in a strangely maternal voice. The ghost advances quickly, and Amanda recoils at the intrusion to her personal space. "Find anything good out there?" She asks in her own version of a backpedal, the cyan light of her center flickering as she speaks.

"Uhh, well today I found some weapons and ammo," She replies softly. "Most of the shank shells are from a few days ago. Was hopin' to trade 'em for glimmer or a toolset, but there's lots of them being turned in, so I'll haveta wait until the market is better since I don't happen on a lot of 'em."

His ghost chatters in her electric way, computing something before responding. "Shank shells are something they're asking for at the outpost." She scans the girl's haul, her lens illuminating the equipment on the ground as she rattles in tones that tell her guardian she's making an analysis. "Probably could get a couple hundred glimmer for this, and the remains of the pike could be used to fix up your sparrow that you _accidentally_ wrecked on our last patrol when you didn't listen to me about flying directly into the Captain holding the scorch cannon." Zavala rolled his eyes halfway, stopping abruptly when he notices the girl's hopeful expression.

"I could do that!" The blonde chimes excitedly.

"No," He says to his ghost. "Do _not_ start this. There's no telling when I'll be called out, and I cannot act as an intermediary for every orphan in the city getting a raw deal at the Exchange." The scowl on Amanda's face was pointedly ignored.

"Yes, but every mechanic in the city has weeks of work to do before they'll be able to get to your sparrow. It's practically totalled anyway. May as well let her have at it, and worst case you'll still have at least two weeks to wait for one of the city mechs to work on it."

"You two done bickering about it?" The girl's put away all her findings and sits back down, pulling the wrapped parcel onto her lap. "If he don't want me to help 'em, that's fine, um -"

"I'm a ghost. Zavala's ghost," The little light says gently. "We're partners."

"That's good," Amanda says. "Havin' someone is important." The guardian and ghost share a pained look over her head, but the comment had no bite in it. She pulls out a crust of bread, and something that looks like a type of soup or broth. There's not enough to share, but she offers it to him despite the rumbling he can hear from her belly. He shakes his head and she shrugs, before taking slow, concentrated bites.

He looks at his ghost, and she flickers at him pointedly, watching her try not to rush through the meal despite obvious hunger. He knows what that look and the narrowing of her optics means. _Give her something to do. We have the glimmer to pay her for an odd job_ , that look says. _It doesn't have to be the sparrow, it can be anything._ Zavala's gaze remained stoic and firm, a reminder that it was one thing to leave a little food here and there, but he could not fight her battles for her. The world was cruel, though it felt like an arcbolt grenade to the chest to picture just want that could mean for her. Just the realization startles him. He cares for humanity, all of it. He's a protector of all. But this is something different.

It could be his undoing. He tries not to focus on it further.

"What's it like on a sparrow," she asks when she's half way done with her meal. She packs it back up, likely to have later to take the edge off. Zavala watches her expression change to interest as she regards him. His chest tightens at her hopeful, guarded excitement. "It's gotta be like flyin', right?"

"It is more like riding on one of those wagons people come into the city on than flying a ship," He says slowly. "Except quite a bit faster."

"You've flown a SHIP?!" Her voice is raised and incredulous.

He chuckles at her amazement, he can't help himself. "Yes. Guardians have to travel across the globe and even to other planets for missions. I have my own."

"That's neat! What're the specs on it? I watch them sometimes, when they take off from the base," she says. "That way I'll know if I see yours!"

His ghost, eager to please, projects an image of it directly in front of her, and she all but scampers into her cupboard sleeping area to grab her pad and pencil. She sketches it quickly as his ghost rattles off specifications that he doesn't care to understand.

"You are interested in flying?" Zavala asks her, propping his chin up with his hand.

She nods, holding up her sketchpad and comparing it to the projection from his ghost before flipping it closed and tucking it on the ground next to her. "Always wanted to fly. See the stars, the other planets the Traveler's touched." She leans back and looks up at the night sky through a large chunk of missing roof. "Reckon I made it to the City, and that's a pretty big feat," she murmurs. "I'm good at takin' things apart and makin' 'em right again, so I figure I could learn how to build my own someday. Then, head out and see just what's goin' on in the solar system."

His ghost hums her approval. "That sounds like a good dream," She says. Zavala nods.

"Not a dream," The girl says defensively. "It's a goal. Might take a while considerin' I'm livin' meal to meal right now, but I'll get there someday. You'll see."

They stay in relative silence after that, listening to the sounds of crickets and rare peacefulness, until Zavala's ghost relays a message from another titan, his voice booming and at least five times louder than any other person Amanda's ever heard. Zavala ducks out of the girl's shelter, laying a hand on her head as he passes, hesitating slightly - not that she noticed - but following through.

It's the first time since well before her Pa's died that she can remember someone touching her with fondness. Pa'd been very scattered and lost at the end, moving about life in a haze. She puts both hands on her head, commiting the warm feeling to memory. She still doesn't feel safe here, but she sleeps more soundly than she has in months.

-/

Three days later, Amanda hears what sounds like a knock on the brick wall on the far side of her shelter. It's rather early, and other than the blue-skinned guardian, she doesn't get visitors. She feels panic wash over her just as she hears someone call out. "HELLO?!"

She recognizes that voice. It's the one Zavala's ghost relayed to him when he came to visit. Her shoulders relax marginally.

"Hiya," She calls back, rounding a wall that separated what she's guessing was a sitting area from the kitchen. Her gaze is calculating. The man has armor, a helmet with horns and no eye-holes, unlike Zavala who doesn't wear a helmet - or at least not that she's seen. He looks kind of important. And also strange, since she can't see his eyes.

He can obviously see her, because he flicks his wrist and speaks to his ghost, who materializes just above his palm. "ZAVALA, YOU'VE SENT ME TO A LITTLE GIRL. HOW IS A LITTLE GIRL GOING TO REPAIR MY COMMUNICATOR?" His voice doesn't sound angry, she supposes, just impatient and LOUD.

"Zavala sent you?" Amanda's head cocks to the side at the sight of the ghost's lens turning orange.

"Trust me, Shaxx. You will not be disappointed." She blushes at the undertones of confidence in his voice, relayed by the ghost through a bit of static.

The large man, Shaxx, she committed to memory, sighed. "ALRIGHT, BUT IF THIS GOES WRONG, I'M HOLDING YOU RESPONSIBLE." The ghost disappeared from sight in a shower of white sparks, and Amanda watched as he removed the armor over his right forearm. She could see the loose wires, and cracked plating. The chip in it was probably bad, too.

He holds it out to her, and his hands rest on his hips. She turns and heads into her main space, the shoddy little kitchenette, and sets it on the counter, before looking through a pile of miscellaneous radio parts she's got stashed in a broken drawer. A rusty screwdriver, a couple sturdier wires, some salvaged plating, and one chip lifted out of a busted helmet comm later, she sat down and got to work.

"YOU REALLY _DO_ KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING," He said, watching her tongue peek between her teeth as she snaps the metal cover off with a bit of leverage.

"Sure do," She says with a smile, pulling out her soldering tool to bind the chip to its casing just enough to prevent it from coming loose. "I'll be done in just another couple'a minutes," she says, and within five minutes, she's handing him back the gauntlet. "Made it a bit more sturdy. You look like someone who likes to punch things."

Shaxx chuckles. "I LIKE YOU, GIRL." He holds his wrist up to his lips, speaking his authorization code loudly.

"Go ahead," comes the familiar voice of her guardian friend.

"THE GIRL KNOWS WHAT SHE'S DOING, ZAVALA. SHE MADE IT STURDIER BECAUSE SHE RECOGNIZED THAT I AM A WARRIOR WHO ISN'T AFRAID TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY."

Amanda laughs, "Somethin' like that."

"SHE'S GOT SPUNK. I CAN SEE WHY YOU LIKE HER."

She can hear the chuckle of Zavala as Shaxx cuts the comm link and wonders if he heard her. Shaxx reaches into a pouch on his belt. "WHAT'S MY BILL?"

"I - uh," She pauses. Bill? She got to owe Zavala at least ten or fifteen favors by now. How many times has he left her something to eat? "There's no charge," she says quietly. "I owe your friend, the guardian, er, Zavala. A lot." She wipes her hands off on a towel.

"NONSENSE. YOU MAY OWE ZAVALA, BUT YOU DON'T OWE ME ANYTHING." He pulls out a larger chunk of glimmer than she's seen. "OUR TECHS WOULDN'T DO THIS FOR LESS THAN 750 GLIMMER, AND THEY'D TAKE FAR LONGER, INCOMPETENT BUFFOONS, THE LOT OF THEM." He puts 500 glimmer in her hand, closes her fist around it. "I'LL ASSUME YOU CHARGE LESS, SINCE YOU USE SALVAGED PARTS." She looks up at him and guesses he's got to be smiling under that helmet of his.

He straps on his gauntlet and nods. "MIND IF I COME BACK, SHOULD I NEED ANY MORE REPAIRS, LITTLE MECHANIC?"

She shakes her head. "Feel free," she says with a shy smile.

When Zavala came by two weeks later, she'd had enough food to share, and he let her, eager to hear about the handful of guardians he'd sent her way. What surprised him more so, was that Shaxx had also done the same thing. It was rewarding, seeing the spark in her eyes. It reminded him of eager guardians, looking forward to their first missions. She'd found a purpose.


	3. First Flight

He had continued popping in on her from time to time between missions, over the next eighteen months. Slowly, surely, she had converted the devastated house that was her little shelter into a workshop of sorts. Inconspicuous on the outside, but the inside housed two sawhorses, an innumerable amount of tools, and quite a few parts that were littered around the rest of the space. Mostly guardians popped in and out for repairs that couldn't wait, or those who were short on glimmer came by to propose a trade for scrap that was hard to get within the city walls or other goods she required, though a few civilians also came by with broken radios, trackers, and comm devices. She'd managed the funds to pick up a few broken data tablets, and repair them to functionality.

It always impressed him, watching her work. He hadn't let her work on his sparrow way back when, but at present, she had an old one balanced between the saw horses, and was working on its engine with practiced ease, though she said it was her first, and it was a salvage she'd purchased - just in case she broke something beyond repair. She was pragmatic and practical, and he had to admire her tenacious personality when it came to learning new things. Her skill with Golden Age tech was undeniable, and on occasion, he would tell her so.

His ghost was particularly enamored, practically adopting the girl as her own, speaking to her quite frequently when it was only the three of them. "She's gonna have to raise prices at this rate. I heard a few of the new hunters say she's got a week turn-around now."

"Yeah, what's with them breaking everything all the time?" She wiped sweat from her brow and looked up at the pair at his ghost's snort. "I've only seen two warlocks, and they said the only reason their stuff is broken is because of a hunter on their squad."

"Fireteam," Zavala replied. "They're called a fireteam."

"Ah. You have one?"

"Of sorts, usually we go on missions with different guardians each time. However, some guardians have a specific team they prefer. I find myself working with Shaxx, and our mentor, Lord Saladin."

"Titans tend to stick together," She replied, tightening one of the bolts to the chassis after closing the engine compartment. She'd heard tidbits about the Iron Lord through her rapidly increasing clientele. "I think I like them best."

Zavala couldn't help but smile. A warm feeling washed over him as he asked, "Do you now?"

She nodded. "Yeah. You're like knights in shining armor. Literally."

She can tell he likes the comment, because his ghost spins around him and gushes, "Look at you, big guy, you're blushing. Haven't seen that in a while. Good work, kiddo." He swats at her shell in a half-hearted attempt, clearing his throat as he does so.

Amanda can't help but smile. "They gonna send you out any time soon?"

He shrugs. "One can never tell. I think I'll be making a run to one of the settlements outside the Cosmodrone soon, to pick up supplies."

"Like, a flight?"

He nods.

"D'ya think - nah, nevermind."

"It won't be my jumpship," he says, as though she hasn't just tried to ask. He knows what she wants. Even his ghost has mentioned it to him. They can see it in her eyes, whenever one of them shares a story about a run to the other side of the globe or, on occasion, another planet. "It's a transport ship." He reclines back on the workbench, propping his upper back against one of the outlying walls, before casting his eyes downward to gaze at her intently. "Plenty of room for stowaways."

She drops the wrench in her hand and it clatters noisily to the floor. He jerks at the sound. Her eyes are blown wide and glassy with what terrifies him to think are tears. "You mean it?"

He feels the brush of his ghost in the back of his mind. _No going back on this one, Guardian. You'll crush her._ She's conscientious not to say it out loud, but he can see the serious gaze of her optics.

"Yes," he nods, and is surprised by the tightness of his own voice.

The little girl rushes toward him, throwing her arms around his neck and pushing her face into his cheek. His arms come around her and he hears her litany of gratitude in a breathless mumble into the side of his face. She's smiling and crying and the force of her emotions are too much for him to do much more than hold her tightly in response and hope he hasn't just made a terrible decision.

-/

Naturally, he had.

The second he touches down in Old Russia, he sees what's left of the few guardians fighting against throngs of Hive enemies. His cheery co-pilot, eager to learn and so excited to come along gasps and shakes at the sight of the gore. He bangs his fist on the console as he takes them down, cursing his abandonment of the rules. It's the first time he's bent them for a civilian, and he realizes that it may cost her her life if he doesn't put this situation to rights quickly.

"I am going to put this ship down, and you will stay in here. If you hear activity on the ship and it is not me, hide under the control panel and hit this button," he points to a green flashing light on the control panel, "to alert my ghost."

At that, his ghost bobs in the affirmative. "All will be well, co-pilot. Just got to stop some baddies, pick up the supplies, and then we'll get this hunk of metal back to the city."

Zavala casts a glance at his ghost. She's oddly maternal toward the girl, but he's not about coddling her on matters like these; Amanda knows about the dangers of what lies outside the Last City. The anxious spin of her shell tells him she knows she's embellishing. This won't be an easy mission for them, if the welcome party is any indication.

Once she's alone, Amanda re-thinks everything she's ever though on the Fallen being the most frightening of Earth's invaders. The Hive are truly terrifying. She'll never un-hear the scream of the Wizard she sees plummet past the ship and above the throng of Hive, or be able to un-see the Thrall mowing down fighters. Above all, she's terrified for her friend. He's told her before in no uncertain terms that guardians don't die like regular folk. But, if something tears you limb from limb, Amanda doesn't see how a person can come back from that, blue skin, glowing eyes and fists, or otherwise.

She clicks on the radio in the cockpit - Zavala had immediately turned it off the second he realized what was happening on the ground - and listens to the gunfire and screams at close range. She hears him yelling directions, taking control of the other guardians, and forces herself to stay calm. He'll save as many people as he can, and be fine himself.

She knows it.

-/

"Amanda, Amanda, you there?"

The voice over the radio sounds an awful lot like Zavala's ghost. She flicks the switch on the input. "I'm here."

"Open up the bay door, you know which button?"

She leans forward and flips a red toggle. The radio crackles with static as the hydraulics whir to life.

"Good girl," The ghost says gently. "Supplies are transmatting. I'll close it when it's done on this end."

"Where's Zavala?"

"Had to split up get into range. He's coming." Amanda can't help but notice the almost tinny quality of her voice. She sounded exhausted. Did ghosts get tired from fighting? They didn't actually fight, that much she knew. "I'm going to go back to him. We have most of the threat contained, once the rest of the guardians get to their jumpships, we'll be good to go."

There's a few moments of anxiety before she hears the roaring of jumpships, and then she sees six of them take off into the sky. She doesn't see Zavala or fighting, though she's managed to toggle the radar and can see a whole army of them swarming further away.

A bloody palm slaps against the window of the cockpit and she screams.

"No, no, open the door Amanda, it's us!" His ghost pops into view, exasperated.

Despite her panic she manages to click open the door to the cockpit. The ghost flits over to her as Zavala manages to pull himself inside, practically collapsing into the seat. He looks at her with dull eyes, practically unseeing.

"Zavala! You're hurt!" She says in a hushed voice, her eyes wide and horrified.

He opens his mouth to respond but only blood leaks out, "Ahhm," he coughs before going still.

"Zavala!" She screams. "Zavala! No, no, no. Not again, not again!"

"Amanda." His ghost is calm, though her voice sounds tired. "It's okay."

She reaches for his wrist, and feels for a pulse. There isn't one. She releases it and pushes his head to one side in an attempt to feel his pulse that should be thrumming on the underside of his jaw.

"Amanda!"

"He's dead," she whimpers, sobs bubbling from her throat. "I - I thought guardians couldn't die," She says between muffled sobs.

"Amanda Holliday, _listen_ to me."

The girl looks up at the ghost, her shell spinning furiously. "I need you to buckle him in, and get this ship off the ground. Can you do that?"

"I-"

"There's no time to doubt yourself. There are people counting on us to get these supplies to safety. Can you do it?"

Swiping at her eyes and steeling herself, she nods.

Buckling the Titan in is a challenge. He's dead weight (she tries not to focus on the dead part, despite hearing her heartbeat in her ears chanting dead - dead - dead with each pump of blood she gets that he doesn't) and when she pulls the harness over his head it tips forward onto her shoulder. She leaves it there while she finishes pulling the bottom part of the buckle from under his leg and buckles it with a bit of difficulty. There's blood dripping from his mouth down her shirt, as well as frothy saliva, but she swallows down a gag and puts a hand on each of his cheeks, shoving him back against the headrest so that he's propped up. She clambers up on his knees quickly, giving him a peck on the forehead and a quick hug before returning to her seat and buckling in, unable to stop herself. Just in case she doesn't get a chance later to say goodbye.

"There are an army of Hive headed towards the ship. We have to be off the ground before they get to us," His ghost is beginning to glow. "I can rez him while you fly."

"Rez?"

"Resurrect. No time to explain the how. I can't rez and pilot this thing at the same time."

Swallowing her gasp at the prospect of the little ghost bringing him back, Amanda the switches to start the engines and and grips the lever that toggles the landing gear, pulling it as she pushes forward the thrusters. She's only watched Zavala do it on the way there, and tried her best to commit everything to memory. Hopefully she had.

The ghost's shell seems to be pushed away, as she lights up, core spinning with that blue glow like his fists had, that time he saved her from the fallen. She sways back and forth as she does her work.

Their takeoff is shaky, she can hear the sound of gunfire against the hull, and the supplies rattle around in the back of the ship. She gulps, and pushes the thrusters harder. It's enough to jolt her back in her seat, and she grips the steering control hard to keep it from wavering further. The ship hurdles forward, just in time for her to see arriving ships. Their armor is that dark purple and orange that signify the Fallen, and a bang of a ship's lazer against the shields causes Zavala's ghost to shutter and her core to dim for a moment in distraction.

"Oh no," the ghost says, already beginning to glow as she recollects herself. "This is going to be a rough one."

"For him or for me?" Amanda quips.

"The both of you." She sets back to work as the girl attempts to steer around the rapidly approaching Fallen vessels while thwarting any stray shots from the Hive at her back. "I'm not usually interrupted while bringing him back," The ghost's voice is laiden with strain. "And we rezzed so many on the field that I've barely got the energy."

Amanda didn't look, couldn't look away from the scene ahead of her to see what was happening with all of the blue light. She had to get them out of here. "I'm guessing you're both gonna need a good rest after this one."

The ghost laughed, her partner igniting with the blue ripples of arc energy. "Yeah," she said, as he gasped for breath, coughing out the remains of blood and ichar in his lungs, his eyes staying shut though he was very definitely breathing. The ghost settled down onto his shoulder, nestled between his neck, shoulder, and the back of the headrest, her optics dim and indicative of her exhaustion. "You're not kidding," she said, before her light died down to a very muted blue.

Amanda chanced a glance between evasive maneuvers, figuring that was the ghost's 'standby' mode, of sorts. At least she hoped. Zavala's chest moved up and down, like he was sleeping, and she prayed to the Traveler looming half-covered by the horizon she'd be able to get the ship back without trouble.

Flying felt second nature to her, even if the ship felt wide and less responsive than the ones she piloted in her dreams. She wasn't really keen on the bits where she was fired at, but as she barreled in a quick spiral to avoid one ship and dodge the blast from another, she decided that it could have gone worse.

It took an hour to stop seeing the Fallen ships, and she made sure to check the radar and satellite data to make sure they were on course and not being followed, adjusting her course slightly to keep making time. The jump-ships she'd seen leave were much faster than this transport, so she kept an eye out for any blips on the radar to indicate another vessel headed their way, and settled in for the long haul. It'd be at least another eight hours before they'd see lands she was familiar with, if the ride there was any indication.

-/

When he woke, it was not to gunfire and calamity like he'd expected. He was used to this sensation, the slight bit of memory loss associated with a difficult resurrection. Though something nagged at him, it was just slightly out of reach. His consciousness blinked out, though his thoughts remained. He'd been doing something, transporting civilians - no, something else - and -

"Cargo transport ship zero - three - two requesting airspace clearance. Vanguard authorization code eight - six - two - seven," His ghost rattles off. "Closing in on the EDZ, estimated arrival time two and a half hours."

The radio crackled. "Authorization granted. You're making good time," Came the reply of a female guardian. "See you landside."

"Aashima," He breathes his ghost's name, not quite opening his eyes yet.

Said ghost flutters directly into his peripheral as he does, tutting softly. "It's about time you joined us."

"Us? I -" He lurches forward, awake now, almost headbutting her as he does. She stutters backward and allows him to gather his bearings. The cockpit is dark, and the sky in front of him even more so, the Milky Way prominent against the stars. He looks to his right. She's not making eye contact, instead, scanning the radar and pushing gently on the thrusters to move forward, sweeping her gaze across the horizon.

"Glad you're back," Amanda says, when he shakes out the stiffness in his joints. "Gave me a scare," she continues, softer.

A hard look in his ghost's direction has her speaking quickly. "What do you last remember?"

He gives the girl a pointed look, then looks back at Aashima.

"You got into that seat and croaked on us," Amanda said when no one spoke. "Aashima - that's your name right? Never heard 'em use it before," She jerked her thumb up at the ghost, who bobbed in the affirmative. "Aashima used her light to bring you back while I out flew the Hive's guns and a couple'a Fallen ships -"

"Couple?"

"More like half a dozen," The ghost provided brightly and Zavala groaned.

"...And half-rezzed you," She looked to the ghost again for clarification on the new term, "But she got interrupted 'cause the shields got a little battered 'n it jolted her pretty good."

"I… see…" He sighed, alert enough now to be concerned. "Does anyone else happen to know that Amanda's piloting this ship?"

"Nope," Both girl and ghost say at the same time.

"As far as the Vanguard is concerned, I've been piloting it the whole time you've been out. Nothing happened, right?" The ghost's optics flicker over to Amanda who shakes her head.

"Nah, I outran the Fallen, flipped off the seatbelt sign once we got high enough and have been doing my best to make good time. When you came to, I was just gettin' out of the cradle."

The ghost and guardian exchanged a glance. The ghost hummed sheepishly while the guardian asked, "We were both out?"

Amanda shrugged. "Yea, but it wasn't a big deal. Everything's fine back there, I pulled up a visual once we were out of hostile airspace." She cues it up again for him to confirm, stifling a yawn as she does. He does the math. They've been in the air for at least six hours, and she hadn't slept the whole way there in her excitement. It's been at least a day that she's been awake, under stress and on high alert at that. She's a girl, not a soldier.

He reaches for the controls. "I'll take it from here, if you'd like to rest." She nods, and he can't help but feel guilty that he's been unconscious for the last however many hours - long enough that the girl is actually tired. It hits him hard to realize that if she hadn't been there, it's possible he might not have made it out, or at the very least, he'd still be there waiting to be rezzed while the Hive thinned out and retreated back to their holes.

Her hand reaches over to his arm and squeezes before she curls up as best she can with the harness on. "I'm really glad you're okay," She says, green eyes serious. "I don't want to lose you."

Aashima waits until she's done a scan to confirm the girl is asleep to speak. "This was kind of a disaster. I didn't know if she'd be able to pull through. She hesitated pretty hard when you died. Really thought I'd have to try and fly this thing, and we both know I'm a bad pilot."

He hums. "We are lucky to have had her with us. And even luckier that she did."

"She's a natural flyer," Aashima gushed, lowering her speaker's volume. "And so young. I'll have to run the log when we get back. I really don't know how she got past all of them with this bucket of bolts."

"Perhaps she'll be the best pilot in the solar system someday."

"Don't you think that's a little too far? She's good, especially for it being her first time, but one cargo mission doesn't make her the future hopeful for 'best pilot in the galaxy.'"

Zavala hums, and turns his gaze on the sleeping girl. Something tells him he's not far off.

-/

 **Notes:** The name I've chosen for Zavala's ghost - _Aashima_ \- is an Islamic name, meaning 'limitless protector, guardian, defendant.' I thought it was fitting, considering the number of times the ghosts actually rez their guardians. I've seen other fics use different names, and didn't want to steal anyone else's ideas. If anyone comes across info on his ghost's name or gender (I'm assuming female, here), please feel free to assist. I envision his ghost to be a bit like Sagira (with less snark), and for she and Zavala to be a bit more dependent on each other.


	4. Knights and Castles

She does her best not to think of him anymore, high above her in the Tower. All it does is make her chest burn and her eyes sting. It's a cruel world. She's lost everyone else she's cared for, why would he be any different? He isn't. She'll adapt, she always does.

It's what she tells herself, but she still dreams of the stoic mask covering the Speaker's face when he says that following the dedication of the watch atop the wall, civilians will be barred from entering. And worse, she dreams of _his_ face, stoic and unfeeling, when she screams and cries and tries to pull from his grasp: because _he_ brought her up there, _he_ showed her the hangar and the ships, _he_ spent time with her, _he_ told her all that he wanted for her, _he_ told her he - no, she thinks, don't even think about what he said. _He_ did it on purpose. Because he _knew_. He knew it would be the last time.

" _My place is in the Tower. My duty is to protect the Traveler, and the remnants of humanity. I cannot bend the rules in the way I might have in the past. The Vanguard looks to me to lead them. I cannot - this cannot continue."_

It's stupid, really, she thinks, when she wakes with tears leaking from her eyes and a hollow ache in her chest. What did she expect? It wasn't like he was indebted to her. If anything, it was the other way around. It was hard though, to see him come through the City on occasion, a fireteam at his back, looking for all the world like the Commander he'd become and nothing like the kind man who'd bring her food, who would regale her with tales of heroism, who sent work her way when he knew scrap prices were down.

Eventually, though, the tears stop coming, and the hole he's left in her heart is plugged by work. There's a lot of it. Less guardians meant more smugglers, more crime. Up in their tower, the guardians watched the horizon, but lost touch with what was happening in the City beneath their feet, and Amanda Holliday grew up fast.

-/

"Sir, I have intel from Ikora."

He nods. "Proceed."

"There is a crime syndicate responsible for the theft of our shipment from Hakke. One of her Hidden got eyes on an aircraft running directly from the manufacturer to their base. Apparently they sign off using stolen codes. The reason Hakke had no idea why we were missing the weapons is because their logs say we picked them up."

Bright eyes met hers and he nodded. "We have the location of their base?"

"Yes. Hakke has been instructed not to interfere with the pickup, only to notify us on a secure line the next time someone picks our shipment. I have a fireteam on standby to intercept and obtain the shipment."

"I see. And do we know what this crime syndicate is all about?"

"Unconfirmed, but there are a few possibilities. The Hidden have eyes on the operation, they're greedy. It's likely they're selling our weaponry to guardians with a steep markup, or keeping them to incite their own wars. Either way," She pauses long enough to look at the blurry images on the screen in front of them, "Andal says one of his Hunters has a contact that can get us in the warehouse they use as their base of operations. I'll get a recovery team together to go in, and a containment team to stop the rest. Care to run tactical?"

"Indeed." His posture says more than anything that he's pleased. "Excellent work, Sloane. I'll leave the rest to you. Let me know when I am required to participate."

She salutes, eyes glimmering brightly. "You got it, Commander."

-/

She never had time to look back from the smoldering rubble that had been her makeshift home in the Last City. There was something about that, she supposed. Forward momentum. Guilds had become common amongst the citizens, and not even they were immune to the decay of crime and corruption. She'd been in her shop when they appeared that day, close to sunset, though it had been cold and raining too hard to tell.

Two of them held her down while the rest of them went through her paltry belongings, taking anything they felt was of worth, breaking the rest. They dragged her out just as the smell of smoke started making her eyes water, and just before one of the mostly empty cans of fuel exploded, likely taking with it most of the first story.

She remembered only bits and pieces of the rest, whether that was a blessing or a curse, she wasn't sure. The names they called her faded into white noise after a while, though the burning pain of their blows and otherwise stayed with her long after. She'd kept her eyes scrunched closed, let her mind wander, and prayed for it to end, clawing and screaming until they'd pinned her to the ground from the neck down, tears stung her eyes, and breath left her lungs.

When it was over, they'd thrown her into an alley in a shameful state, threatening to repeat the process if she attempted to take work from them again. She'd laid there all night, and for the first time in her life, she wanted it all to end. There was nothing left. When she woke up the next morning and it hadn't, she sighed, scraped herself up off the wet ground and started again.

Two months later, she took on a job from a bigger group on the other side of the city, having started selling salvaged scrap to them for far more than the pitiful rates the mech guild that dominated where she'd been living before. The area was a bit more damaged, the cracks in the wall bigger, but she'd learned how sneak around. No one was coming to save her, and she lived each day knowing the next day was the only gift she'd get. Safety was a luxury she just couldn't afford.

The job was to recover supplies from a guild they were feuding with. She'd gone in with a sidearm she had no plans to use unless a gun was pointed at her first, and a sparrow that she repaired hastily after realizing the clutch stuck.

"It's a suicide mission," The old barmaid had said to her, when she first looked at the posting tacked to the counter of a dingy bar. "You're a bit young to throw it all away."

She shrugged, throwing her head back and looking up at the ceiling before looking back at her. She was a kind looking woman, with dark eyes and white hair. "Either I take this mission and make enough money to get a room 'fore this winter freezes me to death, or I don't, and I die of hunger or hypothermia, whichever's quicker."

The old woman sighed. She had seen plenty of others go down this same road of desperation. She poured teen a glass of ale, served her a meal she couldn't afford, and let her sit there for a while before radioing in her acceptance. When the girl admitted she couldn't pay, the woman shrugged.

"You can pay me if you make it back. If not, I won't lose sleep over providing you with your last supper."

-/

Five years, countless missions, and one repaid meal later, Amanda Holliday had established herself under the pseudonym of _Aviatrix_. She knows enough about the politics to stay out of it. None of it matters, so long as she's got enough money for a drink when she gets to where she's going, and a roof over head when she comes back to the Last City in between.

She knows it won't last forever, because nothing in her life ever does, but she's got several small stockpiles of glimmer spread around and an old sparrow hidden away. This time, starting over won't be hard, if it comes to that. She knows a thing or two about any ship she can get her hands on and can run circles around most sparrow racers, guardian or otherwise. She tinkers for fun and for personal benefit. Her friends are misfits and outcasts, who might stab her in the back, but she'll turn on them if she has to, too. She's the only one who'll put herself first. So they're even.

It's not the most ideal situation, but it's leagues above anything else she's had since, well, let's not think about that. She even has the luxury of being somewhat selective about her work. She receives plenty of messages daily on her tablet, has her finger on the pulse of the city.

 _ACEOFHEARTSI'm looking for a pilot. You know anybody? ;)_

She knows the sender. His crew ran all sorts jobs in their free time and she just so happened to know she was the best pilot he'd met, and she'd more than established herself as his first call when the good loot was at stake. That, and he was a guardian. So he'd get her out of trouble if push came to shove.

 _AVIATRIXDetails._

She leans back and takes a sip of her beer, pushing her tablet back onto the clip of her cargo pants. His messages mean he's already found her. A cloaked figure takes a seat on the stool next to her.

"Armory ship from the Tower to the Trostland. Drop two teams in. They transmat some goods back to base, secure the area and any baddies while you provide some air support." His voice is a molten synthesizer, and he leans forward, holding a rocks glass of green liquid. "Bring it all back safe and sound and obviously you'll get some loot and a buttload of glimmer."

"You gonna smuggle me into the tower, pal?" She leans against his cloak as she speaks low. He smells of pine and campfire, with an undertone of gunpowder. "I don't exactly work for the Vanguard, y'know."

"Nah. I'll bring the ship to you."

"That it then?"

"Just about. You'll get me to keep you company, I'll be going 'bang bang' while you're going 'pew pew,'" He makes finger guns and mimics the button pushing of a ship's laser charges to correspond with his sound effects. "Andal practically left me in control of this whole thing. It'll be great, you'll see."

She shakes her head at his antics. He's ridiculous, but she likes him well enough. "You know my terms."

He nods. "Oh yeah, I know I know I know," He gushes, knocking elbows with her in a way that's strangely friendly. "Sparrow at the rally point and no unnecessary questions. Anything goes wrong and I owe you a favor." He looks at her, optics growing sceptical. "But seriously, nothing's going to go wrong. This is, like, SO EASY of a mission. And when have I ever steered you wrong?"

An eyebrow arched. She gives him a cool glance. "When was the last time I listened to your picks for a race?"

"Oh come on! That was months ago _and_ I paid for your dinner after you lost your glimmer. Let it go already."

-/

As with most things with Cayde-6, Andal is expecting there to be yelling. And there is yelling. Honestly, he can't blame Zavala, no matter how cleverly worded Cayde had been to conceal this - in Cayde's words - minor detail. Just as Andal himself had concealed who would be running tactical. Minor details all around, then.

There was a _civilian_ piloting a trooper class Vanguard ship. Zavala was having kittens. It wasn't a destroyer(or the basic armory ship Cayde had initially requisitioned), but it was still not a ship that the general public was supposed to have access to. Ever. The civilian said very little - actually he hadn't heard her over the comms at all, and if Cayde hadn't slipped up and spoke to her precisely seventeen minutes into the flight, he could've prevented the whole thing because other than the stellar flying, it was like no one was there with him.

" _Look - c'mon, Big Blue - Commander Big Blue - erm Zavala, it's not that big of a deal."_ Cayde's voice crackles with static. " _Aviatrix here has done like a bazillion flights."_

To his left, Zavala was pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing through his rage. Andal did his best to keep from invoking that rage by laughing at his friend's antics. Sometimes it was just funny.

"And how many of those have been for the Vanguard?"

Silence.

"I. _See_." His words are tight lipped and highly agitated. Andal winces. Cayde's dead in the water.

Sloane, diligent worker that she is, has already looked up the name and is handing over her tablet to her superior, muting the comms. "No intel on the actual identity - that name's just what she goes by, but she is a competent flyer. Several of our weapon suppliers have used her to deliver sensitive cargo. It could be worse."

Zavala flicks his eyes down at the tablet, and freezes. The face is unmistakable. Older, harder, but it's obvious enough and explains the silence. Andal can just barely read the change in the Vanguard Leader's body language. He looks subtly uneasy, but composes himself quickly.

Zavala's eyes meet Sloane's and she doesn't flinch away from the intensity. _Titans_ , Andal thinks with a shake of the head - always trying to prove they won't back down.

"This is your mission, Sloane. You think they can do it, I'll trust you."

She nods and presses the button again to allow the field teams to hear them. "Anything goes wrong and I'll hold you personally responsible, Cayde."

" _That makes the two of you, if the glaring I'm getting over here is any indication."_

-/

Aside from the regular tongue-lashing song and dance he's going to get from Zavala, Cayde thinks the mission couldn't have gone smoother. He knew he picked the right pilot for the job, regardless of non-guardian status. Besides, she agreed to the deed, so no big deal. Wasn't like he held his gun to her head and told her to fly.

She sets the ship down like she's cutting into butter with a hot knife. It's smooth and gentle, nothing at all like the lurching mayhem that happens when he tries to put one of these things back on the ground. He pats her back in celebration as she flips off the controls. She's ready to get out of here, and he can tell. Her eyes dart all over and she's almost twitchy.

"I know this didn't quite go the way you were expecting -"

"Does it ever?"

He continues talking over her. "- totally do something like this again if you're -"

"I'll think about it."

"Well, why don't you think about it over a drink with me?" He jogs behind her as she exits the the vessel with an agile jump to ground level. "I could take you back to the tower and show -"

"Amanda."

" - hangar after. Wait, what?" The Vanguard Commander's presence gives him pause. "What did you say? Why are _you_ here? Actually, doesn't matter. The mission was a success!" Cayde went to give a playful one-two punch to the commander's arm, but immediately sensed the change in the atmosphere when maelstrom green eyes met arc blue ones. Andal swore he had good instincts, even if no one else readily acknowledged them. Or Cayde-6 in general, most of the time.

Her posture is rigid for a moment, but she forces herself to relax, shifting her eyes to look at the exo. "I'ma have to pass, Cayde. Not a big fan of knights and their castles."

"I'm not a knight, I'm a Hunter!" Said hunter throws his hands in the air in exasperation, muttering, "Titans are way more like knights than I am -"

"I know," she interrupts slinging the bag with her payment over a narrow shoulder. "See y'around, Cayde." The barest nod is all the acknowledgement she gives Andal, and that's plenty for him.

"And it's not like I even _like_ -" As she hops onto the back of her sparrow and it roars to life, Cayde sighs dramatically, throwing his hands out in an exaggerated shrug. "Why do I feel like that she wasn't actually talking to me? Anybody?"

No one answers. Not that he's expecting them to, because he's still carrying on.

Ever vigilant, Andal watches the situation unfold from afar, withholding his judgement. He's going to have to yell at Cayde a little, that much he's sure of. But for right now, the clench and unclench of fists - an old tell of Zavala's - is a bit more important.


	5. High Stakes

He sits back in the Consensus meeting, nodding and interjecting appropriately. His personality is startlingly good for what he does. It's baffling though, how he could be so well suited for this glorified desk job and yet come from the wilds - constantly feel the pull in his blood to _go_. He really needs to get out for a bit. And soon.

In an effort to redirect his wanderlusty thoughts, the Hunter Vanguard decides to pull up the database through which all other devices running on the Tower's network are connected. He's curious. Zavala has been exceptionally tight-lipped, and Cayde is throwing a fit about _the girl_. Aviatrix. Blondie. Flygirl. There's like fifteen other names that Andal's heard in some variation, and they only get more cringey as the list goes on. Zavala knows her. She knows him. No one told Cayde. And that pisses him off(Andal only hears about it _every_ time he sees him).

He pretends that he's looking up metrics for some supply run - he needs to make a note to have Cayde skim some of the supplies off that Dead Orbit route. Those fools will be on Earth still, long after they put him in the ground for good. Instead, he pulls up a list of the Commander's most recent searches. Here are a good three pages worth of results, and as expected, they are all intelligent inquiries - looking up Cayde's search history is always a blast, and he makes sure to do it most times they go out drinking at the more bawdy establishments in the galaxy.

When he resorts the results by most recent, he's not surprised to find certain ones mixed in. _Amanda Holiday. Amanda Holliday arrest record, Amanda Holliday known associates, Holliday workshop, Holliday records._ He wonders if the Commander is surprised by the results of the second, because there are several several arrests on file. Two of which Andal has personally bailed her from.

He really wonders if that part's in there. Not that he's concerned enough about it to look.

It's not the whole story. Andal's only ever worked with her in passing - she's a sneaky little addition to their crew, when the need arises. And Cayde, Cayde never stops talking about their hasty escape from the Cabal on Phobos, or how she fixed a sparrow with a belt and a pair of earrings after he got them shot at over in Old Chicago. She's impressed him. He knows things, though. His network isn't nearly as deep as Ikora's, or half as widespread. That doesn't change that he knows things about the slip of a girl that the database does not, and Zavala very obviously wants all the information he can get without relying on Ikora or her Hidden. Andal logs in his personal encryption codes, and locks any searches including _Amanda Holliday_ or similar variants to require two-thirds Vanguard approval. And of course, an encrypted notification on his handheld for when the Vanguard Commander attempts to use his authority to go around it.

Game, set, match.

-/

"Andal."

The Commander approaches him from a few meters away, and the call girl practically shoving her breasts around his arm sighs and picks up her drink, making a show of a wink and a kiss before she walks away with a swagger. She's cute, but he's had better. And besides, he likes a challenge. When his gaze swings back across the room, she's already found a much greener target. Poor warlock doesn't know what he's getting into.

Andal holds up a half empty glass and motions for the bartender to bring another for the off-duty Titan, still in his armor. Said Titan sits down on the empty stool beside him. The chatter of the Tower bar is a moderate drone, especially with the races happening tonight.

"Zavala. To what do I owe the pleasure? You don't fancy Sparrow Racing, and it's the Grand Prix." He makes a grandois gesture to the nearly packed bar. "You betting on anyone in particular?"

Andal knows Zavala doesn't bet. Zavala knows Andal knows it, too. Andal rubs his mustache and grins at the irritated look that comes his way. Zavala is almost grateful when the mug of ale is set in front of him, lifting it to his lips without a word.

"Well, if you ask me," No one did, but Andal knows where he's going with this, "I put all my glim on Marcus Ren. _Holliday_ designed his sparrow - calls it Hastilude - and that thing could probably make the jump to orbit if you needed to."

The large hands wrapped around the medium sized mug tighten before he can think better of it. Andal has practically gift-wrapped Zavala's way into the conversation he wants to have. "Sparrow racing is still an unsanctioned activity," The Commander grits out. Good, good. He's evaluating. If something is too convenient, it's likely a trap.

And this is absolutely a trap.

The Hunter Vanguard shrugs and takes a pull of his ale. "So is attempting to skirt around firewalls for search results requiring two-thirds Vanguard approval." He leans back and stretches like the cat who caught the canary. "I tipped you off about Cayde looking at your recipe for Action Snacks and went so far as to refuse to allow him to look it up with my credentials. Yet, here you have been, trying to break the rule you made up."

The swirling lights move more rapidly under the Awoken's skin. He's embarrassed.

And he's _caught_.

"What business do you have with Amanda Holliday?" Andal asks quietly. Around them, no one reacts. The could just as easily be discussing the weather.

"What is it to you?" The Commander counters.

The Hunter leans into another swig and sets the mug back down with a quiet thump. "It's not. I'll admit my curiosity, I suppose. However, I happen to know more than the database, and could be persuaded to impart my knowledge."

"And what will it cost me?" Traveler take him, Zavala thought dealing with his fellow Guardians was sometimes more dangerous than engaging their enemies.

Andal shrugs again. "Time. I need to get beyond the walls for a bit. Breathe some fresh air and sink my blade into the enemy."

"Two weeks."

"A month."

"That's too long for the Hunters to go without a Vanguard."

"The Hunters barely need a Vanguard, you boss them around more than I... and it's not like I'll be totally in the wind. Think of it as me doing some fieldwork. I'd check in like any other Hunter."

"So, not at all. And you're going to come back after this ' _field work_?'" Zavala didn't look impressed.

"Yes," He hisses in reply, looking wounded. "Scout's honor." The conflicted look the Commander gives his beer tells Andal he's got his mark. "So about the girl… where should I start? Actually, you tell me what you know and we can compare notes."

Zavala glowers. He's already been outmaneuvered once tonight, and he has yet to finish his drink. "Not happening, Hunter. Start with how you know her."

"Through a contact, in the city. Took up a job no one had any business takin', and did it better than half my usual crew. Solo."

"Sounds about right," His colleague agreed with a nod, and Andal caught the proud puff of the chest Titans had whenever you praised one of their own. He catalogued it.

"Shy little thing. Worked hard, kept to herself, was discreet. Perfect for freelance work. They loved her."

"Sone of 'em started noticing that Cayde took a shine to her. Had her in peals of laughter - I hadn't - nobody realized how young she was. Thirteen years old, she'd told us. Makes her what? Fifteen, sixteen now? A mere babe, Zavala. She has no business-" Clench, unclench, repeat. "being the best flyer I've ever met. Fix anything you ever need, half of it with her eyes shut. But get her in the skies and - well, you saw how well Sloane's op went." When silence fell, Andal nudged the Titan's beer closer to him. "Drink up, mate. Cayde's told me several stories that I think you'd rather enjoy."

He skips the finer details, takes note of questions he can't answer, and offers to get what info he can without any further promise of time away - he's getting soft, damn it all, but Zavala is very invested in his every word. This girl means something to her. Something very important. So he does what he does best: spins stories.

Eight - or was it twelve - fourteen? - beers, two shots, one race, and a pretty fantastic return on investment for the Hunter Vanguard later, the two members of the top brass are almost-not quite stumbling back to the Tower. Andal is talking animatedly about a - definitely unsanctioned - job on Venus - or maybe Phobos, or was it… didn't matter, and Zavala is laughing, shoulders loose for a change, from the excess of booze. Something about reframing an Interceptor with slug rifles since they'd shot out the blasters. Cabal never saw them coming. The stories get lighter as the night goes on, because Andal has known this man for more than a couple decades, and he'd sag under the weight of the world on his shoulders if things got too heavy while he's trashed(not that he's liable to admit it - it's not a pretty sight).

Zavala claps Andal once on the back and says, "First time I met Amanda, I saved her from a Fallen brigade. Dropped down on them with _Fists_ ," He makes start of the motion, always a bit more animated when he's had something to drink. "She spent the next hour checking to make sure I didn't hurt my hands. Didn't have the heart to tell her Titans drop from the tallest buildings we can find for fun."

Andal decides it was worth the hangover the next morning, especially when he holds all the info he's accumulated over Cayde's head.

-/

She returns to the small room she rents in the city bone tired and weary. She hasn't slept in three days, the job paid poorly, and the guys she'd worked for were pigs. She shudders thinking about it. Worse times, she's had far worse than a few lecherous toerags staring at her. She leans her head against the door frame and looks down. There's a box outside her door. She brings it inside, opening it slowly and cautiously.

It's a radio, smallish and scuffed. The circular logo is unmistakable. There is a slip of paper with tidy writing folded beside it.

 _Should you ever you wish to talk, I will be here. Be safe._

He still cares. It hits her like a tidal wave, but the part of her heart she's tried so hard to ignore says of course he does. She cradles the scout radio to her chest and cries.

-/

Months later, she's sent to the Outskirts, past Trostland, just shy of the Shard. She rarely goes out that way, because of the Fallen. She knows infestation when she sees it, but some things just can't be helped.

There's a Pike Gang that's been driven out of the area recently, by guardians. She's to pick through their makeshift garage and bring back whatever vehicles she can. The more she brings back, the better her payout. High risk, high reward, the man tells her when she agrees, despite reasonable doubt to her chances of success.

It's an old parking garage that's been converted into a living space, complete with transportation storage. There are six pristine looking pikes lined up and ripe for the taking, and no enemies on her radar. Smooth sailing.

Or at least it was, until the Fallen happened upon her theft in progress. Must've jammed the radar.

She's not a soldier, and the reward isn't worth her life, so she dumps the Pike she's moving and runs. She hears the sound of rockets and a too loud blast and knows they've likely just bombed her ship. She forces herself not to panic. Panic won't save her life. Panic is the same thing as death in these situations.

She reaches for a little metal button clipped to her bandana. "Anybody out here that can assist in an extraction?" She says in a clipped tone over static. She's got the radio on her belt tuned to a general frequency. "Got some glimmer I can give ya." There's gotta be a couple money hungry guardians around here somewhere.

" _Did somebody say glimmer?"_

She exhales a sigh of relief. "Cayde-6, that you?"

" _Amanda, love, send us your location."_

Cayde and Andal? It's her lucky day. Thank the Traveler. Then, their communication is washed out with angry fallen chatter. She double presses and holds the button to give her current location away, then sets out to find a place to hide from the throng of angry Fallen out for blood.

" _Jeez kid,"_ The comm crackles to life minutes later, Cayde sounding just this side of concerned over exasperated. " _What'd ya do to piss 'em off? Call their mothers ugly?"_ She hears the scratchy wailing sound of sparrows on fast approach, followed by some telling hand cannon fire.

"Tried to take their Pikes," she whispers back. "Intel I got was that the gang was taken out. Seems they rolled out the welcome wagon. Sorry 'bout that."

Andal chuckles. " _We have a similar knack for trouble. Get to you as soon as we can. Keep your head down."_

She stays in a high corner of the garage, hidden behind the skeleton of a rusted car. Fallen chatter comes close and then fades, and she forces herself to breathe slowly, lower the volume on her comm as low as it can go for her to still hear any directions from the hunters down below.

" _Alright,"_ Cayde says, once the gunfire has slowed to a dull roar, " _You're lucky I like you. You got an entire ketch on you. Whoever gave you that intel should be shot."_

"High risk, high reward," she calls back. "I'm just lucky y'all were nearby."

" _Lucky is one word for it, kid. You shouldn't be out this far in the EDZ without a crew."_

"C'mon, I can handle-" a squealing whoosh and the corresponding blast short out the comms for a second. The concrete underneath her collapses, her vision goes purple around the edges, and she falls.

-/

The comms light up red in the Vanguard Hall. Sloane toggles them immediately. "Go ahead."

" _I need backup in the EDZ. We got anybody available to help out?"_

"Cayde-6. You were supposed to report in weeks ago," The deputy commander says, looking at his ping on the map. "And besides, you never need backup." She's skeptical. "What've you got yourself into this time?"

" _There's a first time for everything. Look, I don't - I don't have time to explain. Just send someone to Outskirts - literally anyone - pronto."_ The static catches gunfire.

Zavala and Sloane look at each other. "Well, should I authorize a fire team?" She asks him.

He nods. "I would."

"Cayde, we'll need some more information-"

Andal's voice is cool and curt as he interrupts her. All business. Both Titans glance at each other. " _Deputy Commander. Put Zavala on the line."_

"You're _late_ , Brask." The Hunter Vanguard is over a week late checking in, and Zavala takes that agreement they made to the letter. His voice is clipped, angry.

The sigh that cuts across the line is subdued. Andal knows he deserves it, not that he'll admit it. " _I'd like to think I'm right on time, considering the circumstances. Sending coordinates to your ghost."_

"Why?" Sloan asks the question he's thinking.

" _Holliday."_ The Hunter Vanguard punctuates the rush of her name with several shots of his sniper rifle. " _Bad Intel. No time to explain."_

"Holiday? Is that some protocol or something?" She's not looking at the Commander. That's for the best. Zavala jumps up, summons his ghost. Her cones are swirling and twitching, and his rifle falls into his hands - a steady weight - as though he's standing in front of a battlefield, not the Vanguard Table.

"Send a message to Ikora that I will be unavailable for the foreseeable future," He addresses Sloane, like she's some orderly and not his second in command. His ghost transmats them away immediately after.

Sloane is left standing there, infinitely confused and kind of ticked. How the hell is she supposed to explain this to Ikora?


	6. No Time for Goodbyes

When she comes to, she has no idea how long she's been out, and she's in a weird position. Her body is inclined so that her legs and hips are higher up than her chest, and it feels like all the blood in her body is rushing to her head. It's dark. She can't see a thing. There's gunfire and whistling pulse rifle shots in the distance but they seem muffled.

She coughs, and all she can taste is dust and dirt. Everything hurts. She flexes her fingers first. Everything feels fine there. She puts her hands on her chest. Her chest is sore, and she won't discount the possibility that she's damaged her ribs, but she seems to be breathing well enough. Nothing's sticking out of her chest or her back that she can feel.

Then she tries flexing her toes. It's like a bomb goes off at her right knee, the pain so jarring that she screams. It's a few seconds of white vision later that she reaches for the little flashlight on her belt, knocking away rubble. Flashing the light up, she can see the steel toe-cover of her boot sticking out from under compacted rusting metal that's pinned under concrete and more metal.

It's facing toward her, the wrong way. Like it's made a U-turn somewhere around her knee. The only part of her right leg that's visible is her upper thigh, looking normal until it's covered in debris.

The panic isn't something she can fight this time. She pushes the flashlight into her mouth and pushes both her elbows down, trying to get some leverage. She's got to get out of here. Her left leg can move, seems relatively alright, and she draws it mostly out of the rubble before moving onto the right. It doesn't give.

The pain blinds her as hot tears scorch down her cheeks and she cries out, not caring who finds her. There's no reply, just distant sounds of combat. She tries for Cayde, Andal, _anyone_ on the comms, pleading.

Static.

It doesn't look like she's getting out of this one. Her luck's run out.

She reaches into a pocket on the inside of her vest.

She's memorized the message. The paper is tattered now, soft from the oils on her fingers, but she keeps it with her at all times. Time has been a balm to the burn of his betrayal, and the years have taught her plenty about duty and responsibility to know that it was likely for the best for them both.

The knowledge that he cares is enough. She's never wanted to rip open that wound, let him back into her life. It's for the best, she's told herself. There's no possibility that a smuggler - a criminal - like herself would be able to maintain communication with the Vanguard Commander without there being severe conflicts of interest on both sides. And there's no way she could have stopped doing what she was doing. There was never any other track for her.

It's been a cruel life.

She reaches for the radio on her belt. It's not the same one, this one's a significantly updated model than the one she'd repaired for him. She readjusts the flashlight in her mouth to point at the cracked display. Thankfully, it had been on her left hip and not her right, or else it too would be pinned under the debris. It takes a second, but she inputs the frequency that's scrawled underneath the message from memory, though the paper trembles in her shaking hand.

The static crackles at a dull roar. Amanda inhales, feeling the creeping pull of exhaustion. She knows what she's doing is selfish, but if she's going to die - and it seems more likely as the minutes tick by - she'd like to hear from the one person who truly cares for her, one last time.

-/

"Zavala," his ghost says. She hasn't been able to dampen the note of concern in her voice. "Someone is trying to reach you, but I don't know who it is. The ping is constant, signal is weak."

He punches it, his sparrow agile around the urban decay they've landed into. He rights their course around debris and abandoned vehicles of the Golden Age with ease, waiting for her to continue.

"Definitely isn't Vanguard -"

He inhales sharply. If she weren't speaking to him through neural link, they'd be looking at each other in dawning realization.

"You don't think-"

"Put it through, Aashimah."

She does.

" _H-hi,"_ the voice comes. It sounds quiet and muffled, more so than usual for static.

He shifts the vehicle into a higher gear; The road is relatively clear from this point onward. "Amanda?"

" _Yeah,"_ She confirms, through a quiet gasp. His brow furrows. " _I g-s I j-st wan-"_ It cuts out, and comes back. " _...voice. I don- -ow if I'm gonna make..."_ She continues, until it cuts out again.

His gut feels like it's tied in knots. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

" _... I'm sorry,"_ The apology comes out cleanly amongst the static, the rest of it is swept away.

He realizes immediately: this isn't a conversation. This is a goodbye.

"I'm coming," He chants, uncaring of how much concern bleeds into his voice, or if the Speaker himself hears him on the comms. "I'm on the ground in the EDZ. I'm coming to you. Hold on until I get there."

" _You… me?"_ She asks in reply.

He can only guess what she's asking. "Tell me where you are." The road opens to an old plaza, and he can see the tell-tale signs of recent battle. His eyes sweep the perimeter. He sees Cayde's location and swings wide. The Exo's face is hard, and he's engaging a squad of Fallen. Zavala watches Andal's void grenades explode in front of them, taking heat off of the other hunter so his ghost can heal him up.

He hears a grimace, but it's more of a muffled cry than anything. Agony. " _P-k-g g-ra-"_

Immediately the electric skittering of his ghost ramps up through their link. She's a good partner. He's certain she'll have a location soon. "Keep talking," she says to the girl. It'll make her job easier.

" _A-shi- Colla-d -ll -ew sto-"_

"Collapsed? The parking garage! I've got a lock." Aashimah's voice draws back quieter. His vision flickers with focus on the location she's marked. "Two o'clock. Eight hundred meters. It's… definitely collapsed. Structure is unsta-" She pauses.

" _Trapped,"_ The word echoes out between man and ghost between static. " _...eg crush- I bro-"_

Zavala's hands grip the handlebars of his sparrow so hard he bends them slightly before dismounting. He's positively terrified.

Andal falls in behind him quickly, and Cayde's never far behind.

-/

It takes them a while to get to her. Zavala has not worked with Cayde-6, and certainly not with him _and_ Andal. He squashes the thoughts of half boiled schemes and daring escapes, trying to focus on the positives. The Exo obviously knows what he's doing, and is well suited for work on the frontier. His posture is alert, and his bright cyan optics flit over their surroundings almost constantly though he continues to pull pieces of rubble aside. He's hardly making small talk, and Zavala's thankful. He needs to focus.

They're digging down from above at a frantic pace because the lower two levels are essentially compacted, and there's no real entrance. They don't know much, only that she's trapped. Luckily, only one side of the parking garage has been hit, so their search parameter is relatively small, despite the fact that she doesn't know how many levels she's fallen and the entrance is completely decimated.

The panic he'd expected to feel was lessened by the work they were doing. Eventually, the duo removed enough of the debris to create an opening, and Cayde dropped down, gun at the ready. A quick sweep and he motioned for the Commander to follow. Andal took the rear.

It was completely dark, and they proceeded slowly and carefully, looking both for explosive charges and hostiles. Cayde cues up the radio and speaks quietly.

"Hey. You still with me, beautiful?"

Zavala rolls his eyes. He was just thinking to himself that Cayde could actually be serious, and then the Exo goes full speed ahead into flirtation mode. He bites back the urge to remind him that she's a child.

There's no answer. Cayde's mouth can't exactly frown, but the plates on the side of his neck glow a soft orange to indicate his displeasure.

"Radio has been static for at least an hour now," Andal whispers. "Zavala, anything for you?"

His head shakes in a firm denial. His chest feels tighter by the second, and Aashimah is doing her best not to panic herself.

Exos don't actually need to sigh, but he makes a sound like one and looks over at Zavala with a grim expression. "Now's the time where I think we should split up to cover more ground." He pauses. "Unless you have a better idea." Looks to the Commander. "You did crash this party."

Zavala looks back at him, their eyes the only lights in the dark. "It's not a large area, if the outside is any indication. We should stay together, especially if things are unstable. I will be able to shield us if the structure collapses." He prays it doesn't.

Cayde nods, and moves forward without complaint. The parking ramp is mostly empty, slanted by structure damage, the few cars held within picked clean of most of their components. They round the corner of the ramp to enter the more damaged area and see a chunk of concrete missing, the edges of it almost jagged and slightly bowed. Zavala looks up, and Cayde looks down. Andal assesses both.

"The level above us is also cracked and falling away," the Commander says. Cayde approaches slowly, tucking his gun away.

Andal nods. "Nothing on the radar. I'll watch." The Hunter Vanguard is happy to let Cayde take point on this adventure. If for no other reason than to quell his friend's nerves, it's worth it. However, Andal knows what happens here will make an impact on Zavala. That's important, too.

The Gunslinger drops down stealthily, so quiet it doesn't sound like he's there at all. It's a huge contrast from his usual swagger. Zavala is impatient for results, and Cayde seems to have been gone for a few minutes. He begins to hear the clacking sound of concrete being thrown away.

"Drop down," Cayde shouts with an edge of authority to his voice. It echoes through the level. "Be careful. This one's definitely unstable."

"Roger that." Zavala eases himself down the hole as far as possible before dropping. The ground doesn't bend under his feet and he's thankful. Andal seems to materialize on the ground beside him, and if the Titan didn't know any better, he'd think the man _blinked_.

"What did you get yourself into?" Cayde is murmuring, pulling away at more concrete a few meters away. Zavala looks his direction and sees nothing but the darkness of the level below. "Talk to me, kiddo," He yells. "I brought backup. We're gonna get you out."

There's no sound but silence for the longest seconds.

Then, "I'm going down." Aashimah erupts from somewhere beside her Guardian and scoots by Cayde at a quick clip, her eye bright like a beacon.

"Amanda? Amanda! Eyes up, little one!" Her voice only gets louder. "Look at me - I know, I know, it's bright, I gotta check you out." A pause. An even quieter moan. Then quieter, "Oh, no. No, you can't sleep yet, look at me." Her voice rises again, frustrated. "Damn it!"

"Ghost!" The bark of the Commander makes both Hunters recoil. "Report!"

The authority in his tone jolts his little partner, who flutters back up through the tiny opening she'd slid through in the first place. "Guardian," she reaffirms, bobbing in front of the Awoken. He nods back. She's checked herself. Her voice is even when she speaks. "We need a medivac."

"No way we're gonna get one this far out," Andal supplies, rubbing his chin. "We'd need another fireteam to keep them from getting shot down, whole thing could take hours to prepare."

"That's out. Injuries," Cayde snaps his attention to the white-shelled ghost. "Whad'ya got?"

Aashima's cones twitch in the affirmative, swiveling from the Awoken to the Exo. "Assorted lacerations, probably a few broken things." She pauses. "Left leg is trapped under debris. All of-" She casts her eye upward, illuminating several stories that are visible through the giant cracks and holes from impact. "I think she was on one of the middle floors." She provides some other minute details - obviously there's a myriad of issues here, but the leg is the biggest. "It's not good," She said carefully, bright eye turning back to Zavala, cones drooping slightly. "We don't have much time."

Zavala watches the Hunters. They lower themselves to their knees, pulling away rebar and concrete slowly and carefully. He sinks to his a few seconds later, thoughts rushing a mile a minute, heartbeat pounding in his ears. Cayde hisses, "What're you waiting for, the Dawning?" And Zavala digs in as well. Andal gives the Exo a look as Zavala begins peeling away crumbling debris and twisted metal. "What?" Cayde queries. His best friend makes a pointed glance at the Titan and then blinks dark eyes back at illuminated optics. The Exo sighs, a more realistic one this time. "We're gonna get her out of here," He says softly. "I've done hundreds of civilian rescues. We've got this."

Zavala doesn't look up, his ghost fluttering around him before slipping back down below. He can hear her pleading the girl to wake up, to look at her. "I hope you're right."

Cayde sputters. "Hope? Didn't you say at that one Consensus meeting that Guardians make hope? You should believe in your own material." The Commander looks up at the Hunter, and Andal nods to himself in the darkness as the two get back to work as a team rather than individuals forced together. Everyone underestimates Cayde-6, but Andal Brask would have him at his back anyday. Zavala's just starting to see why.


	7. Life or Limb

It takes them an hour of carefully clearing debris to make a hole large enough for them to get down, plus ensure an easy exit once she's secured. The only sounds they get out of her the entire time are low, keening moans, and incoherent babble when Zavala's ghost pushes against her face hard enough to rouse her. It's a bad situation all around.

Aashimah has taken to illuminating the girl's body as they drop, scanning debris. She startles and flutters around Zavala as Andal shines a true flashlight on the girl, tutting softly.

"I'm not sure if landing on this old bucket of bolts is a blessing or curse," Andal murmurs, circling slowly, careful of cracks on the ground beneath him. "The angle's kept her blood pumping to her vital organs, but that leg," He trails off.

Cayde's mouth is set in a dark line, the orange that illuminates his oral cavity when he speaks not present in his silence. He reaches forward and touches her left leg gently, feeling it down to the foot where it's kicked out from the rubble. It does not look broken by his opens her eyes and blinks heavily at him.

"C...Cayde?"

The Exo's head rockets upward to look at her, before calling to the two men. "She's awake!" He yells as if the other men aren't there with him. "You're awake," He breathes, quieter, to her. "You feel this?"

She nods, squirming, and he puts a hand over her stomach to hold her down at the same time she lets out a shrill scream, bucking against the pressure in her right leg.

Zavala is beside her in an instant, knees on the ground like he's been felled in battle. Cayde blinks as the Titan's ghost flutters nearby, protectively, looking at the girl with a pose of heartbreak. "Let Cayde work," Andal says, standing behind the other hunter. "He was always a better medic than I."

"Yes, Nurse Cayde, at your service." He tips a hat he doesn't have, and smirks at her as she quiets. "Let me see the patient."

Zavala's hand finds its way to her shoulder, squeezing gently. She blinks up at him owlishly, before her eyes widen and tears pour from her eyes silently. "You're here," She says quietly. "I thought I heard you on the radio, I wanted to, but-"

"I will always come for you," He declares fiercely, blinking through the sudden cloudiness in his eyes. "Always."

Cayde takes that moment to place a hand on her right thigh. She grits her teeth and bites back the cry bubbling up in her throat. "Andal," Cayde murmurs, looking up at the other Hunter. "We gotta see what this leg looks like." He motions to the foot peeking out, and the obvious rivulets of blood they're trying to ignore but can't. "Tourniquet after, but let's prep now."

"Yeah." Cayde shrugs off his cloak as Andal agrees, ripping a long strip from it. "Think a knife will do for a windlass?"

"Your sniper barrel will work better," Cayde replies.

Zavala blinks and startles when he realizes the other two Guardians are acting without him. "Tell me what-"

"You have the hard job," Cayde says, taking the strip and placing it around his shoulders like a casual scarf as Andal hands him the barrel of his rifle, now detached. "Hold her still."

"Amanda, love," Andal speaks smoothly to her, and her eyes sluggishly track her in the dim light. "This is going to hurt, but we have to make sure you're not going to bleed to death."

"Yuhhh," She slurs, looking back up at Zavala who's leaning over her, unable to look away from her face. "Y'gonna let me fix that Sparrow of yers? It's looking kinda rusty-" She motions over in the direction of a pile of rubble, before her hand flops, limp, and her eyes roll back. Zavala blinks in confusion.

"Fuck," Andal curses. "Cayde."

"She's hallucinating," Zavala says quietly. "Why is she-"

"Shock." Andal looks at Zavala heavily. "She's been here for hours, Zavala. They hit this place practically before we got a shot in. Ain't much to her as it is."

Wide blue eyes stare up at the Hunter Vanguard. "I-"

Sturdy brown eyes blink back. "This isn't the time to let your emotions rule you, old friend." Andal knows this is a test for the Titan, but he has to put his emotions on the shelf for a while.

"Uh, if you two are done waxing poetic-" Cayde draws both of their attention. "Andal. Move one piece at a time, until her boot is exposed. Zavala. Keep her down. She's going to move when she feels the pressure change on her leg." He gestures to her position. "Keep an eye on her breathing, and don't be surprised if she gets worse."

They move slowly, and she barely stirs until the final piece of rubble between her boot and the dusty air is exposed. Then she's arching upwards, screaming.

"Zavala!" Cayde calls, but the man is there, forearms braced on her shoulders, leaning over her face.

"Calm down, calm down," He's chanting, but she keeps struggling. Cayde grabs her good leg when she begins to flail it around too.

The Exo shakes his head. "Change of plans." He motions to Zavala. "You're gonna have to straddle her. Sit on her hips, and pin her arms. We're never gonna get anywhere like this and she'll only do more damage." He does as he's told, and her eyes shoot open when the bulk of his weight is lowered onto her.

She begins whimpering, pushing her hips and back down into the myriad of debris she's pinned to, attempting to curl away from the body above her. "No, stop, _please_ ," she repeats, over and over, eyes darting around wildly. "Don't touch me," She growls, spitting at him when his face hovers over hers, trying to console her, but she cascades into incoherent sobbing, pleading, "Not there, _not there_ , don't!"

Andal looks to Cayde. Cayde won't make eye contact, which means Cayde knows more than he's willing to share. Not that it changes things. None of them are stupid. Zavala is looking back to both of them, head tilted over his left shoulder, Awoken eyes glowing in a deadly mix of heartbreak and fury. Unshed tears made them glow more profoundly than usual. This was breaking him more than a lifetime of deaths ever could.

"Amanda!" Cayde calls her name extra loud, abandoning his task in evaluating her leg. "Amanda, that's Zavala. That's Zavala." He rises to his feet and reaches for her face, tilting it away from where she's looking at Zavala but seeing someone else. "You're hurt, kiddo," Cayde whispers, stroking both cheeks until her eyes clear. "He's got to hold you so you don't make it worse. He'd never hurt you."

Andal approaches slowly as well, like she's a wounded animal. "You're breaking his heart, love." Cayde nudges her head back to look at the Titan. "Look."

She does."You're not -" She gasps, breathing quickly. Her body relaxes as she regains her senses. A sob catches in her throat. "Zuh...Zavala?"

"Yes," He whispers, leaning down to press a kiss to her clammy forehead. It soothes her. "It's okay. I've got you." She sobs openly now.

Aashimah appears in motes of light, fluttering off to the side and spinning her cones in an affectionate nuzzle to the girl's cheek. "Listen to me, little one. Let the boys work."

It goes easier, with Zavala's ghost talking quietly, telling stories, Zavala cooing over how well she's doing, and Cayde and Andal exchanging glances to convey their strange level of fascination at the whole dynamic while trying to figure out how the hell they are going to get the girl out of this mess. She still squirms, and there are still some unpleasant moments, but it goes easier with redirection. The girl manages to stay mostly coherent through this stage.

"She's impaled," Cayde says at the same time Andal manages to free her foot from her boot. Zavala looks back to see the barbed metal rebar sticking out three inches from her knee cap, the black, blue, purple, red of crushed limb, the open bone of her ankle. The Vanguard Commander is beside himself right now. He's had men shoot themselves and resurrect for less, but she doesn't get that option. She's just a girl, he thinks. This is too much. "Leave her leg," The Hunter Vanguard says to his scout, who is somber. "There's nothing we can do."

All of the air rushes from the Commander's lungs. "You can't be serious." His hands shake, and Aashimah, feeling the barely restrained emotions crackling beneath the surface of the tactician's facade, moves up into his periphery to try and refocus her Guardian.

"Amanda," Andal croons. Zavala releases her, going back to kneeling at her side, though his hand finds hers and holds tight. "Darling, if we're going to get you out of this-."

She raises her head, looks down at her leg and flops back, spent. Her breathing is heavy from the effort of keeping awake through this. "Don't coddle me, Brask. Just do it," she grits out, turning her head to look at Zavala and squeezing his hand. "'M scared," she confesses, when Andal and Cayde set to work. Apparently she wants Zavala to coddle her instead. "Don't wanna die here."

"You won't."

She laughs like he's told a joke, but it becomes a cry when Cayde sets to slashing her utility pants up to almost her belt, exposing more injury to open air. "Don't lie," She says through a clenched jaw. Cayde slides the strip of cloak he'd cut before under her thigh and begins to loop it around. "Titans don't lie, y'always told me."

"First knot, kid," Andal says, and Cayde pulls the knot. She shrieks and grips hard to Zavala's hand, her free one finding purchase on his armor and gripping tightly.

"Breathe, fighter pilot," Cayde encourages. "You've got this."

She's not calming down, and rightfully so. Zavala catches the Exo's eye. Cayde's expression is grim. "Hand me the scope." Andal does. "Almost done." Another two knots, tighter even, than the previous ones. For these, she arches up again, and Andal grabs her before she can reach to her leg with the hand that's abandoned Titan armor.

"Don't touch," He dictates with authority. "We have to cut off the blood supply."

"I feel weird," She says in reply, her eyes losing focus, her words coming out slower. "Really... cold. Not right."

Zavala lets go of her at the same time Aashimah transmats away his chest armor. He wraps his arms around her in a hug that practically swallows her tiny upper body. She tenses first then relaxes into it, trembling, but not as badly as before. Cayde begins to crank the exposed ends of the sniper barrel quickly. She moans and braces her good leg and does her best to hide her dirty face into Zavala's red undershirt instead of looking at what the Hunters are doing. In doing so, she's tucked her head under his chin. He rests his head atop hers and allows his eyes to slip closed for just a moment, trying to keep the anxiety and worry in check.

She could die, here. Now. This could be the end.

She's whispering things into his shirt while Andal is instructing Cayde on a better knot for securing the windlass. Andal's eyes are on Zavala, though. "Alright?"

"Yes," He answers. Amanda makes a noise that doesn't agree with the sentiment. "What can I do to help?"

"Everything you're doing," The human Hunter says. "It's going to be a bit messy, yeah? You're not squeamish, are you?"

"No."

Cayde nods. "Cover her eyes."

Zavala does, with a large, gentle palm that sweeps away the sweat on her forehead first. When he looks up, Cayde has a thick chunk of concrete in his hand, about to raise it over his head. "Andal, hold her leg. Almost done here."

"On it. Just please do not hit my hand."

"Don't put your hand in my way, and I won't," Cayde quips. "Alright. Quick and easy." Zavala can hear the lie in the slight tremor of the Exo's voice...

...as he slams the chunk of concrete down directly above the top of her knee. Zavala takes back the part about being squeamish, and makes sure he's accurately covering her eyes.

"AGH!" She bellows, trying to flail with no success with the Titan strong-arming her. "Haaaghh," The cry is quieter. Cayde is breathing heavy, a remnant of his humanity bleeding through in the tension. His cyan visual receivers close and open again, and he shakes off the clear remorse in his posture, raising the block again before dropping it harder, with a grunt of his own. The snap is wet and thick, echoing through the space. "Please stop," She begs. "Please, please. Stop, please."

"It's almost over," Cayde says, emotions catching up to him. "I-I'm so sorry, k-kid." Zavala's taken back to stroking her hair telling her how great she's doing, but it's not stopping the babble of nonsense now. She's not fighting him, but the few words he can hear are concerning. "Th-there. N-nuh-nothing to it."

Andal puts a hand on Cayde's chest and pushes him out of the way as he drops the bloodied bit of stone. "I'll take it from here. Good work." He flicks out his knife and digs it into the part of her leg below the tourniquet, around the knee, sawing hard and fast. "Not a lot of bleeding," He reports, while she squirms and yells broken things. "You broke it in a good spot, and the tourniquet held. Glad you took at least one of those first aid classes I sent you to seriously."

Cayde sighs, the jibe a balm on the emotional rawness of the situation. His talkative streak seems to return quickly. "Y'know, I do take this job seriously sometimes. Just don't get your hopes up, Big Blue. If you think this means my reports are going to start coming in on time, you're crazy."

The Commander nods, but says nothing. In his arms, Amanda is practically convulsing, though her body sags into his the second her limb is severed. He removes the hand that's been covering her eyes. It's wet with tears.

"We're taking you home," He tells her when her eyes open, keeping her gaze pointed at his face and not her stump or the amputated extremity beside them, though he can't look away himself. "Hold on a little longer."

"Home?" She asks, blinking groggily.

He nods, adjusting her delicate weight so that he's cradling her. "Home."

"I wanted… I i-in the Tower," She babbles, from shock and exhaustion. Zavala knows what she's saying. He thinks: No. He's always known. "I wanted-"

Her consciousness fades.

 _I wanted to stay with you._


	8. Post-Traumatic

"Do I even want to know why you're here? Where is Zavala?" Ikora can't help the sharpness of her tone.

Cayde sidles up next to her and laughs. "Listen, there was a slight hiccup in a mission, Zavala came to clean up, and now we're here to help you out while he ties up some loose ends in the field. Nothing crazy."

Ikora arches an eyebrow. "You do know I have an entire network of operatives who can find out just about anything about anyone, yes?" Her voice is low and predatory, and Andal puts a firm hand on the other Hunter's shoulder. They're friends, but Ikora is married to her work and has been since long before she became the Warlock Vanguard officially.

"Don't worry about Zavala, Ikora. Cayde has been kind enough to take on my tasks, and I will manage Zavala's." The hand on Cayde's shoulder becomes crippling when he looks back at Andal with that 'I didn't sign up for this' look of his.

Ikora sits back in her chair at the Vanguard table, looking for all the world a queen. "So, what makes you two so generous all of a sudden?" Andal thinks that the picture would look more complete if she had a glass of wine in her hands. She looks away from them with a certain smugness about her. "Certainly it doesn't have anything to do with the little girl in med-bay alpha." Looking back at dual-guilt stricken faces, she sighs, gesturing that it's time to get everything out in the open. "I'll have the details now."

The Hunters fold. Nothing gets past Ikora.

She motions for them to sit and sends a message on her tablet. Sloane appears immediately afterward, like she's been waiting in the wings this whole time. "Ma'am?"

"Sit. These two were just about to explain why you've been doing all of Zavala's work for the last two days. I figured you would want to listen in."

Cayde fidgets and Andal scoffs. "I'll not have this made known through the Tower, Ikora. The man is entitled to due privacy, just like you are. Traveler knows I look the other way enough for you. I realize you are his second, Sloane, but-"

"Anything you say will be kept private," Sloane says, sitting rigidly in a seat beside Ikora. "The Commander was not himself when he left. I'm… concerned."

Would wonders never cease, two Titans with the warm and fuzzies in as many days. Andal and Cayde exchanged looks. Things kept getting weirder and weirder around here.

Ikora nods. "We cannot help unless you tell us what is going on." The predatory gaze wanes, and she takes on a more motherly demeanor. "Start at the beginning."

Andal grins. "Been hearing that a lot lately."

-/

It's late when Sloane dips into the room. Aashimah is hovering quietly between Guardian and child. The girl is hooked up to several monitors and has a machine breathing for her.

If she did not know the man in the chair, his back to her, she'd assume it to be the girl's parent.

"Ahem." She cleared her throat quietly. "Sir?"

He jolted, obviously woken by the address. His Ghost turned her optic toward Sloane, irritation plainly visible.

"I have been trying to get him to sleep for hours now, Deputy Commander," She snarls as Zavala puts a hand atop her shell.

"It's alright," He cautions her, blinking back the sleepiness from his eyes. "Sloane. What are you doing here?"

She toes at a scuff on the floor, clearly not sure what to say.

"Better yet, how did you know where to find me?" The whoosh-click of a ventilator is the only sound in the room. It almost sounds like hydraulics if she doesn't look at the body in the bed.

"Ikora pressed on Andal and Cayde." His eyes narrowed at the confession. "They didn't give specifics, but Ikora put it all together."

"So you saw fit to come down here to investigate yourself."

"Actually," She bristled at the accusation in his tone, "I came to see if you needed anything." After a pause, she added, "Sir."

After a momentary staring contest, he motioned for the other Titan to sit. "Sit-rep?" He asked, after she dropped a folding chair beside his own and lowered herself into it.

"Everything is fine. Nothing new, unless you count the increased number of Fallen in the Outskirts."

Despite lowering her voice, a pair of hands come up toward the tube going into the girl's mouth while Sloane gives her account of recent events. Zavala moved quickly, hands taking hers gently.

"Don't touch," He soothes, as green eyes open and track his luminescent ones in the low light. There's a soft gurgle, the ding of a machine, and what seems like a silent conversation. He puts a palm on her forehead. "Easy now. They'll take it out soon enough. Rest." Her eyes close for a moment, and then open again. She's no longer fighting the ventilator to breathe, though her eyes water from being awake with it down her throat. She blinks and looks to the newcomer in the room and then back, the question in her eyes.

"Sloane," Zavala's ghost chimes, her voice almost melodic in the silence. "She's a friend, Little One." Optic settling upon the off-duty Guardian, she continues. "Come over and say hello."

Sloane stands rigid, surprised to be addressed by the Commander's normally silent partner in such a conversational manner after irritating her. She approaches the other side of the girl's bed so that she's in decent view. Zavala withdraws the hand from her forehead and Amanda blinks over at Slone with curious, tired eyes.

"I know we've worked together before," She hums in her alto voice, "But it's nice to meet you in person. The name's Sloane."

Zavala looks over at his second in command with a scrutinizing glance. The girl raises her right hand toward the Deputy Commander. Sloane smiles and grabs it with her own. The girl's handshake is firm. When they release each others' hands, she puts hers back to her side and allows her eyes to drift closed again, accepting of the newcomer.

Both Titans return to their seats as she falls back asleep - evidenced by the decrease in heart rate and blood pressure on the monitor above her bed.

"Cayde mentioned an ambush," She ventures, quieter than before. "But he said it was a building collapse that injured her. Is her prognosis-"

Zavala sighs at that. "She's going to live," He says softly. "But she is rarely alert for more than a few moments at a time, or wakes confused and combative, hallucinating. The physician says that it is a part of the infection, from the field amputation. Most injuries like this have the propensity to be fatal, but they believe she received treatment in time."

She looks over at the girl, noticing the wide, large bandage that distinguishes her right leg ending significantly short of the other. "They didn't say anything about that."

He gives her a sharp glance, and she puts her hands up. "I suppose not. Cayde and Andal," He breathes, taking a moment to compose himself. He supposes he should speak on the subject, as it will likely be common knowledge soon. "Were attempting to rescue her from a Pike Gang. She was attempting to raid their vehicles. A ruddy salvage mission with pisspoor intel."

"Alone?"

He allows himself an irritated grunt of affirmation. Composing himself, he says, "We assume it was one of the Servitors that collapsed the building she was in. Her leg was… crushed. Andal and Cayde did what they could to allow us to extract her. The cost..."

She puts a hand on his shoulder. "If I may, Sir," She says, sure to meet his eyes. "You don't need two legs to fly."

He shakes his head. "I suppose not. But none of this would have happened if I-"

The dinging resumes, drowning out the sound of a gag. Both of them look up. The blonde's sitting up straight in bed, shaking her head despite the tubes connected to her. She's trying to tell him no, it's not his fault, and her general inability to communicate - and the fact that she's choking herself trying to do so - is only getting her more worked up.

"Should I go get someone?" Sloane asks tentatively.

"No. Leave us," He says, turning back to the girl. "She'll calm."

She nods, and sees herself out. Immediately, the girl flops back against the pillows and holds both hands out to him, seeking to comfort him. She only relaxes when he's sitting on the edge of the bed, and she's turned on her side, bad leg kicked out behind her so that it rests on a pillow, the rest of her curled around him, and her hands holding his atop his knee.

He can't understand it. If he had made a different choice that day, had tried to take on both his obligation to the city as well as the one he refused to acknowledge he had to her…

None of this would have happened.

-/

Amanda has her good leg pulled up so that her chin rests on her kneecap, her stump kicked out in front of her. She's trying to lift it, but her muscles throb and burn with the cramping pain of a limb that's no longer there. She grunts and feels her body shake before she overtaxes herself and flops back against the couple pillows behind her back, limply.

She absolutely should not be moving this much, but she's so tired of being stuck in this stupid bed. It hurts beyond measure when she finally scoots back down under the covers, pulling them up to her armpits and reaching for the tablet left for her on the side table.

"You know," Comes a smooth tenor voice from the doorway, "It might not hurt so much if you actually took the meds they gave you." Cayde sashays into the room and plunks down next to the bed in a folding chair that he turns around and straddles. "How ya doing, kid?"

She scoffs. "Up until this happened, y'all treated me like an adult. What gives?"

"You're kidding, right?" He gestures to her leg. "You nearly died. That first night - ah, okay. Not going there." Awkward head scratch. "You discuss this with Zavala at all? You seemed pretty okay with him treating you like a kid."

She flushes hotly at that. "I was outta my mi-"

"Is it because I'm an Exo? Just because I'm silicone and metal doesn't mean I don't have feelings, Amanda," He mock pouts.

That earns him a giggle. "I know you gotta heart in that shiny body a'yours, Cayde. And I haven't seen Zavala since…"

Cayde shrugs. "...Since you were having fever dreams and had to be heavily medicated?" She looks away, embarrassed. "Aw, c'mon. Don't be upset, he'd never hold it against you. Besides, I think he liked that he was the only person you'd let comfort you. Made him feel special, not that I appreciated it very much. I thought I was your favorite."

"Cayde-6, you are not making me feel better." Her cheeks are rosy - more embarrassment related than from her lingering fever - and she refuses to look at him, still.

"Deal with it, kiddo. You know who'll be back sometime tomorrow and you know he's going to come check on you - heaven forbid we acknowledge personal matters on the comms, Vanguard matters only, yadda yadda, I'm sure he's beside himself. Anywho... it's kinda good that he won't be back 'til then. Gives us some time to..." She sneaks a glance at him. He's got that look on his face, and his hands make a vague gesture. His 'mano-a-mano' discussion face.

"What is it?" She shifts uncomfortably to get her stump in a less painful position, but ends up lifting her leg with her hands to move it where she wants. Everything is sore from falling several stories, and most of her backside has bloomed into shades of black, blue, and a curious greenish-purple.

Cayde gets up and shuts the door to her room.

She blinks. Must be serious.

"What do you remember about all this?"

Amanda frowns, crosses her arms. "About this?" She gestures down at her leg. Cayde nods, but stays silent. Patient.

Too patient.

"I r'member you guys findin' me, but it's all a little foggy. I say somethin' stupid to get you in trouble?"

"No! No. Not really. I mean, you didn't. It's more of something Z - er, we told him to do, and you kind of - I mean, you didn't really handle it well, and-"

"Just spit it out, Cayde."

The words come out in a hurry. "We didn't know how else to keep you from moving, and I totally didn't you'd relive _that_ or I never would have had him hold you down like that and I'm just, I'm sorry. I never even thought about it, I just wanted the most efficient way to..." He rambles.

Her fists twist in the blankets. "By reliving 'that,'" She air quotes, "You mean-"

"Yeah." Cayde bows his head.

Breathing gets heavier. She grounds out, "I don't remember it."

"It's probably for the best. I can, y'know, handle it for you and we can just-"

She's furious and ashamed, and it's rolling off of her in waves when she interrupts. "Who held me down, who did I think was… was-" Her voice cracks and she can't force the rest of it out.

"Amanda, I'm-"

"Just fuckin' tell me! If it was you we wouldn't be-"

"Zavala. It was Zavala, okay? I've been avoiding him like the plague since, er, all this, but he wants answers and I don't know what you want me to tell him!" His voice escalates as he keeps rambling and she keeps drawing further in on herself as he does. "He's going to come back here and sooner or later I'm going to have to-"

"Get out."

"What? Amanda, don't be-"

She's shrieking now, inconsolable. "Get OUT!"

"Kid, please, I'm sorry." He reaches his hand out and she flinches hard. "I never meant for-"

"I, know," The words come, forced. She's staring at the wall, body pitched away from him. "Leave me alone. I can't," She pants through panic, "be 'round anybody right now."

He dips out without a word, but she hears the slamming and banging out in the hall. He's upset, too. It isn't his fault she couldn't control herself. She pulls her good knee up to her chest and tries to stop breathing weirdly.

When Sloane enters her room later, Amanda's got her breathing mostly under control, though she hasn't moved from her spot mostly crowded against the head of the bed.

"Is there a reason Cayde-6 is sitting on the floor outside your room looking like a kicked puppy?"

The blonde startles, meeting dark eyes. "He's," She breathes, forces herself to speak calmly, "still outside?"

The Deputy Commander nods.

"Cayde?" Amanda says louder. "It's been a really long time."

Shuffling and two treads of warn boots later, Cayde lingers in the doorway. "Is it okay if I come in?"

Sloane looks temporarily mortified. "Was it okay that I came in?"

Amanda pats the expanse of empty bed by her stump for Cayde to come and sit. He complies, moving slowly. Sloane watches intently, analyzing as her question goes unanswered. It isn't a refusal, and the girl had acknowledged her when she came in so Sloane stays where she is.

"I'm not mad at you," She drawls quietly, green eyes focused on her hands folded in her lap now that she's set her good leg straight. "I just can't believe that I did that."

"Did what?" Cayde shakes his head at Sloane, but Amanda puts her hand on his gloved one and squeezes.

"Just a panic attack," She says slowly. Convincing enough. "Guess this whole leg business was a bit more traumatic than I thought."

Her hand is shaky, but Cayde flips his palm over and rubs his thumb over her knuckles. It's not Sloane's business why this actually came on. No one speaks for a bit, and her hand gets heavier as she starts to fall asleep even though though she's trying to fight it. "You should try to rest. Those always tire you out," The scout intones at a volume just above a whisper. He doesn't look at her, just keeps smoothing his thumb over pale skin. Sloane's deep eyes smolder as she regards them both.

"'M sore," She whispers back. "Can't get comfortable."

Sloane rises. "I'll get someone to give you something." Amanda nods.

"She's been reporting to Zavala," Cayde says softly. "I hacked her tablet." Amanda giggles - it pulls on pseudo-heartstrings in his mechanical chest, how young she sounds(how young she is). "It's all super rigid Titan-speak, but he's been checking in at least twice a day."

She hums. "He'll be back in the morning, yeah?"

"Yeah, should be. Want me to stick around until then? With the," Vague gesture, "y'know. You might, uh, not sleep great, even with meds."

She pulls their joined hands toward her with surprising force for a young girl. "You're a good friend," She says, embracing him with lanky arms. "I don't deserve you."

The Exo's vocal process clicks - going off and back online. It's the only indication that her words have made him emotional. He doesn't move to hug her back, even if he wants to. It's a bad day. He won't make it worse. "You deserve so much more than this, kid."

When the Titan returns with an orderly and pain medication, the girl finally sleeps. Sloane and Cayde do not. Never friends and rarely colleagues, the Deputy Commander shakes her head at the thought of her commanding officer throwing down with the most rambunctious of Hunters.

Cyan optics flicker. "What?" His voice is a low rumble. Between them, Amanda shifts but does not wake.

"This girl has more than half the Vanguard - and you - eating out of the palm of her hand. She's a cute kid and a decent pilot, but it's not adding up."

Cayde chuckles. "She's special. Makes Golden Age tech sing. You break it, she's got it working in seconds." He releases her hand when it twitches in his grasp. "And that heart a'hers is so big, even when this world's done nothing but try to break it."

"People - humanity face adversity, Cayde. Plenty of the refugees face similar things."

"They do," he agrees.

Sloane holds her hand out in a gesture that says his point makes no sense.

"So, why her?" He taps his metal chin thoughtfully as he asks himself the question. "I dunno. Maybe it ain't supposed to make sense. She's just some girl, right? And we're just dead people reincarnated to fight - to protect her and everybody else. She's a metaphor for what we're fighting for. One who's been dealt a shit hand but makes the best of it." He puts a hand on the back of his head and stretches his synthetic spine with a groan. "Anyway, you'll probably like whatever Zavala's answer is better. I'm sure it's more eloquent."

Another waving gesture. She hummed thoughtfully after a time, "Yours was eloquent enough. I'll take your word for it."

-/


	9. Reconciling Duties

Cayde is grateful that the Deputy Commander gets called away at some point in the middle of the night. Amanda wakes screaming and sobbing, the result of strange dreams brought on by narcotics and the previous evening's events. They'd both been expecting it, and it was certainly mild on the scale of hiccups in her recovery, but it was still emotionally draining.

He convinces a rather polite medic to assist her in cleaning up even though there's only a skeleton crew on overnight, and excuses himself when the woman offers to take her for an actual bath instead of whatever sponge bathing they'd done while she'd been critically ill.

She'd been only mildly shaky when he left, and he promised to stay nearby just in case. Of course, what he hadn't planned on was for the Commander to appear not much after that, looking tired but not dead on his feet.

"What are you doing?" Zavala intones quietly, as he makes eye contact. "It is an absurd hour of the night for you to be lingering."

Cayde shrugs, though it just looks like his cloak moves up and down since it wraps around his shoulders in what he calls a perpetual hug. "Guard detail, I guess."

"I don't believe Andal and I determined that to be a necessity." His eyes narrow. Cayde tears his gaze away. "Things are alright?"

"Yeah. More or less. She's just getting cleaned up. Finally well enough to have a real bath, they said." He looks the other direction, toward an open window with full view of the dark sky and stars. The Hunter sighs after a decent expanse of silence. "Your next question is going to be 'why it's happening at this hour,' so here's your answer: she woke up a few hours ago, and couldn't fall back asleep. Didn't like the feeling of narcotics."

Zavala allows Aashimah to transmat the majority of his armor away. "I can't imagine she would," He replies. "She is well?"

"Well enough, yeah." Cayde shrugs yet again, twiddling a knife between armor plated hands. "She's tired of being stuck in that bed all day, been getting pissy about it with anyone who will listen. It's a good thing." He straightens. "You bash every Fallen in the EDZ with your fists of havoc?"

Zavala hums. "Enough of them, yes."

"Make you feel any better?" Cayde finally blinks two bright optics in the Awoken's direction.

The way the Titan's jaw is set gives him away before he speaks. "Not in the slightest. It does nothing to fix this."

"Suppose not. Probably good to let some of that frustration out though."

The silence between them stretches out for a few moments. Zavala shifts his weight and moves to stand across from the Exo instead of in the middle of the hallway. In rare undisciplined form, he allows his back to rest against the wall in a sort of pseudo-slouch.

"You sleep at all since this whole thing went down?"

"Do you often check on your superiors?"

Cayde laughs. "Andal wouldn't know how to tie his boots without me sometimes. But, no. I just know that taking care of her," He jerks a thumb at the wall behind him, "Is gonna be a busy job for a bit. You okay with signing up for that? I don't know if she can stand to lose you again. I dunno much about whatever happened between you two, but she's pretty, uh, attached, if you catch my drift."

The Commander sighs. "I would have been here to check on her hours ago. We tied the loose ends up in the early evening. The Speaker requested to speak with me."

"That religious old coot," The Hunter comments. "Wha'd he want?"

"An invaluable counsel," Zavala corrects. "He wished to evaluate my sense of duty."

Cayde turns on his heel and paces. "Of all people? You? Because of one little girl? That's ridiculous."

Zavala sighs. "He remembered her."

"What?" The pacing stops abruptly mid-turn. "From where?"

"A celebration. Commemorating this-" He gestures to the Tower as a whole. "I had brought her up here, to show her the hangar, let her watch the ships. She had always wanted to fly." Cayde nodded but did not speak. "The Speaker," He clenches his fits, unclenches, and looks away. "He announced that following the commemoration celebration, the Tower would not be accessible to non-Guardians with the exceptions of staff. Guardians would mostly stay in the dormitories and housing built within the walls. It was a move designed to keep our perimeter protected and to free up housing for our growing population. Guardians would only patrol within the City. And the Vanguard Commander would oversee it all from above. I wouldn't be able to see her, as I had in the past. I was barely able to with my responsibilities, as it were, by that point."

"And?"

"I had known about it for months."

"You didn't tell her." Cayde nodded more to himself than to the other Guardian. "She put it together when he said-"

"It gutted her. She ran off in the middle of his speech." He closes his eyes. "I was standing up there with him when he made the announcement, as was expected of me. I had never wanted someone to stop talking more in my entire existence." He pauses, thinking about his words. "When I found her, I tried to talk to her, but-"

"Your duty ultimately won out." Cayde's optics matched similarly glowing irises. "Knights and their castles," He said softly.

"What?"

"Something she said. To you, I think, after that mission I, uh, commissioned her for." Cayde lets the glare roll off him at that. "Anyway, the Speaker remembered her, from that day…"

"...Yes. I told her that my duty was to the Traveler. There was no feasible way to protect the needs of humanity and also be available to her. Or, that is what I thought." He looks at Cayde. "I told the Speaker that my sense of duty has never wavered. It has not. It will not ever. I was tempted to bring up Saint to him, but," He shrugs, "I will not give away my hand just yet."

Cayde smirks. "Good plan."

"Whatever I am able to give, I will," He says softly, as blue optics blink back. "If she will forgive-"

Cayde slaps a hand on the Titan's hulking shoulder. "I'll stop you there. I believe you," He says back in a low tone. "We're having a moment - and it's great, really, it's got me all warm 'n fuzzy in the circuitry - but I don't think I'm the one you need to have this moment with. Tell her. Try and keep her here, if you can." Cayde scrubs a hand over his metal forehead, tracing the outline of his horn. "She's got wounds that aren't physical. We, uh, both know that."

Awoken eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"I tried talking to her about…" He gestures vaguely to the Titan. "... That, er, business with us… uh, holding her down," He finally grits out. "She panicked. Told Sloane - who I'm sure told you, you're not that sneaky - it was related to her leg being cut off." He shakes his head. "She can accept that. There's plenty of options, she's down but not out. Her body will heal. But this," He taps a temple gently, "Trust me, this takes way more time and effort. The ticks fade and you can hide 'em well enough, but the memories remain. Some of that stuff you can live with, but it doesn't all just - Poof! - go away." Cayde makes an explosion gesture with his hands. "I know it bothered you, too. You gotta talk to her about it. She's mortified about it, but you gotta tell her it's okay. She needs to know you don't, y'know-"

"You know?" Zavala's eyebrows furrow.

"Love her any less." Cayde grunts. His posture is straight. Serious. "That you don't think she's broken." He shifts his weight from right to left.

Zavala perks at his words, too. He takes them to heart, even if the 'L' word is a bit too much to consider at this moment. Finally, he whispers, "How could I? To survive against such odds-"

"Tell her that," Cayde nods. "Fuck, if it were me I'd have a bullet in my head and hope that Sundance could put me back together with all my parts shiny and new."

"I would hope that my ghost could heal me without such dramatics," Zavala replies, "But I agree." Zavala gives the Hunter a once over when silence falls again. "Cayde?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you." The Commander crosses his arms and resumes his stance against the wall. "If you and Andal had not been there, I do not know what I would have done."

The Exo smiles. "Just another day on the job, Commander. But I will remember to bring this up next several times I piss you off. Should get me out of some trouble."

Bright eyes regard him with something Cayde will absolutely describe as tears of gratitude in a wild exaggeration to Ikora and Andal later. "Do not push your luck."

-/

"Alright," The nurse says to her, "I'll go out and see if Cayde is still there for you. Everything else alright?"

The girl nods. "Thank you," She says shyly. "I 'preciate it."

The woman smiles. "You are very welcome. I'll come back to check on you later." She turns in the direction of the door and takes a step into the hallway. "O-oh! You are not the person I was expecting to see," Surprise is evident. "Excuse me." She steps out of the doorway and into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. "She said you weren't going to be back until later this morning."

Zavala nods. "I managed to finish things earlier. I was surprised to hear she's awake."

The nurse chatters. "Yes. She's really turned around in the last few days, certainly since you were here last. Go on in. She'll be excited to see you." She leaves him, standing a step away from the door.

Aashimah appears beside him when he stares at the closed door for more than ten seconds. "If you don't go in there on your own, I will transmat you through the door, Guardian."

He blinks at her. "You will not." She begins to spin her cones like she's preparing to do so. He sputters. "I'm going," He says to her, and she evaporates into a small shower of sparks as he wraps his hand around the handle and pushes as it turns.

"What took you so long, Cay-" Her words get caught in a small 'eep' in her throat as she lays eyes on the Vanguard Commander who is definitely _not_ Cayde.

"Hello, Amanda."

He doesn't realize he's been holding his breath until her expression changes from one of surprise to a wide, bashful smile and he's able to exhale. "Hey, yourself." She still looks sickly, with rosy cheeks and too pale skin, but she looks so much better than she had when he'd been forced to leave to clean up the Dead Zone. He moves closer to her without giving it much thought.

The weight of what's happened to her, of how poorly things could have truly gone settle upon him, heavy and unbearable. His brain seems to snag on repetitions of 'she's just a girl,' and he can't bear to look away from her, so small and frail but so vibrantly alive. She would be okay. No tubes or cables attached to her, existing of her own volition. She would truly be okay.

"I-" His voice cracks and there are actual tears in his eyes this time as equal parts guilt and relief consume him. "I'm so sorry."

She shakes her head. "Please," She says, "Don't apologize. I never should have gone out there. Y'all saved my life," She adds the last bit in a whisper. "I'll be fine."

He reaches for her, slowly. "I know you will be," He wraps his arms around her shoulders, and her eyes widen before she relaxes into his embrace, clutching the forearm that's wrapped around her front. "I was so worried I was going to lose you."

She pulls back from him when he says that, and looks up into luminescent aqua eyes. Her own tidal green ones dart back and forth in wide-eyed evaluation. Her lower lip trembles as her own eyes well with tears, and she scoots to the side of the bed that he's standing beside. She throws her arms around his neck as he leans down. "I thought I'd never get to see you again," She whispers into his chest. They stay that way for the longest time, through her quiet sobs that turn into heart-wrenching ones that make her entire body shake, and subside into little tremors and hiccuping.

"No more," He says, when they finally part. She gasps, as he takes both of her hands. "Never again, Amanda." His eyes are fiercely blue, especially since they're mildly bloodshot. "There was something you were trying to tell me," He says softly. "When we were trying to get you out. Do you remember?"

She looks up at him, surprise and concern evident. He immediately saw exactly what Cayde had mentioned earlier. Panic lapped at the edges of her consciousness, and she pulled her hands out of his, wrapping them around her tiny frame as he pulled a chair close and sat beside her.

"I was in shock," She whispers. "I was seeing things that weren't happening. I-I know I th-thought y-you were-"

"Don't trouble yourself with that right now," He says in as low of a tone as he can. She shudders, but does not flinch when he puts his hand on her cheek and turns her head to face him. "We'll talk about that another time. It'll be alright." He releases her cheek and leans back. "You were trying to tell me something," He redirects, looking away from her. "And I would like to give it to you, if you'll allow it."

Her brow furrows, and she looks at him. "What was I askin' for?" She asks, after a moment's consideration. "I only r'member you carryin' me," She adds, quietly. "Felt nice. Safe."

His smile is small and sad. "Once," He reaches out, and she lowers her left hand into his right, "I told you that my duty was to the Traveler and to protecting humanity." She blinks. The tears are back. She ignores them, and he catches one when it falls treacherously down her cheek with a large, calloused finger. "Do you remember?"

She nods.

"You nearly died multiple times that first night. I watched them... attempt," His voice catches, roughly, "To save your life. The entire time, I thought: if I hadn't made that decision, if I had tried to balance my duties to all this," He motions to the Tower around them, "And my duty-"

"It's not your fault, you don't owe me nothin," She interrupts. "I feel like I've told ya that."

He chuckles, "You have. However, listen to me," He implores. "Please."

She nods, and squeezes the hand that's held by his.

"I was… afraid," He admits. "That if I made the choice to balance both my duties as Vanguard Commander and the one I couldn't admit, that I would fail. I thought that if I continued to deny that I had any ties to you my feelings would fade and I would forget."

She looks down at their entwined hands, afraid to see whatever emotions his eyes betrayed. Afraid for what the truth might be.

"I should have known better," He says with a knowing chuckle. "You have been engrained upon my heart since the day you fixed that horrendous radio." A little sob gets trapped in her throat and she looks up at him with widening eyes. He squeezes her hand. "For the last week, all I have been thinking about is what I would say to you, if you would forgive me for my folly-" She inhales to speak and he shakes his head. "But, most of all," He's sure to meet her gaze as he speaks in a hallowed whisper, "Would you let me make it up to you? Would you let this foolish man do what he should have from the very beginning?"

Her eyes, glassy with unshed tears, shine with the question he intends to answer.

"Will you stay with me?"

Her mouth opens in a little 'o' and she closes her eyes. "But, the rules-"

"Rules be damned," He barks gruffly. "Do you wish to stay here, in the Tower?"

She nods. "Yes. Please," She breathes. "I want to stay with you."

She launches herself at him, bad leg all but forgotten about as she nearly topples off the bed and into his chest. He adjusts quickly, catching the pajama clad girl in strong arms and cradling her against him, mindful of her bad leg.

He smiles down onto the top of her head, looking rather relieved. She clings to him tightly as he rumbles, "I had rather hoped you still would."


	10. Two Steps Back

"Alright kiddo, get dressed. We've got places to go, and things to do." Cayde calls from the doorway as he barges into what has become Amanda's unofficial room instead of med-bay alpha.

Owlish eyes blink back at him, peering up over a tablet. "Hello to you, too," She calls to him. "I'm already dressed," She gestures to the flannel and utility pants she's wearing, the right leg pinned and rolled to not flop around her thigh where her leg ended. Clothes Cayde had procured from her previous place of living on her behalf. The rest of it, she'd deal with later.

Andal sidles in behind him. "Hungry? We're springing you out of here."

She looks mildly bewildered. "Springing me out?"

Cayde laughs. "Yup! The Commander is on Strike Duty and we're not. So we were thinking of taking you for Spicy Ramen - we know a place - and then maybe down to the racetrack?"

She throws her tablet to the side. "Absolutely. Hand me them crutches and let's get outta here. Marcus is racing tonight and I can probably get a good look at his sparrow beforehand… if that's alright with yous." She shrugs at her rambling in an endearing way, the freckles on her nose scrunching up in the motion.

Andal hands her the crutches and she props them under each armpit. They're not comfortable - she had them bring her armor components to rig them to be tolerable, but they do. They make it into the hallway before one of the more familiar nurses sees them.

"Where do you three think you're going?"

Cayde and Andal pause, but Amanda smiles sweetly. "I'm supposed to go for lots of walks," She says. "These guys are going to walk me to some stall in the Bazaar for dinner. Is that okay?"

The nurse looks skeptical, especially with both Hunters looking so angelic behind her.

"Just dinner, huh?"

They nod. Definitely no off the books sparrow racing, or taking the Commander's charge down to the City without telling him.

"Well, alright. Not like you're a prisoner. Just be careful." She looks to the two men. "If she feels tired, make sure you come right back. She's still not 100%, no matter what she says."

The Hunters both mock salute, and, realizing the other has as well, erupt into laughter. Amanda shakes her head. "I think I'm babysittin' you two instead of the other way around. Let's move, boys."

She's been up to the main drag of the Tower in the last few days, mostly with Zavala, who makes a point to walk with her in the evenings if he has a shift during the day, or in the mornings if he works overnight. He keeps to low traffic times of day, and will not entertain business when she's around, unless it's a critical situation. Only once has he had to send her back to her room with someone else - and that person - a lanky female Titan with battered armor - was instructed to walk her to Sloane so the Deputy Commander could take her the rest of the way.

When the fresh air hits her face, she sighs happily. It's cooler today. She liked it better when it wasn't so warm out, even if she got colder quickly. Now, with the added effort it takes to walk, she can tolerate it even better. Cayde flanks her on the left and Andal takes her right as they traverse a considerably busy part of the Tower's marketplace. The Guardians look at her kind of funny, but no one comments. She assumes plenty of people have seen her by now or maybe they just don't care.

The Hunter duo acts like her personal entourage and helps clear a path for her if someone stops walking or gets too close while she's trying to gimp around them. By the time they make it to the Ramen shop, she's gone from 'I could eat' to 'one spicy ramen with extra noodles and pork gyoza please.'

A plethora of Hunters approach the three of them and it turns into a story-telling contest. Of course, Cayde and Andal are the masters of their craft, and as a result of the inevitable betting, their meals are free. The shop owner sneaks her a refill on her drink, bobbing around several cackling Guardians, with a wink and a smile. She's content to sit back and let things happen. Most of the Hunters are good about personal space. She's still a little touchy, but Cayde reads her easily enough, putting a hand over hers on her good leg when she starts tapping it anxiously.

"Ready to go to the track, fighter pilot?"

She nods to Cayde. Too many people are starting to crowd around them - it's just the dinner rush, but it's loud and makes her head buzz a little.

She looks down at her tablet, checking a new message. She chirps, "Marcus said I could take his Sparrow for a spi-" She pauses, and the rest of the world seems to fade out. She can't actually take it anywhere. She doesn't have a foot to shift with. She tucks her hands in her lap and looks down. She'd felt so normal, she'd forgot. _Idiot_ , she rebukes herself, while somewhere else inside her she thinks _invalid, cripple_.

"You know," Andal says, eyes shimmering with concern amid the usual mischief, "We could do the other thing…" He waggles his eyebrows, and Cayde chuckles. He's obviously noticed her mood change, too.

"Andal, I don't think Zavala will take it well if we go off planet." Not that he'd appreciate them taking her to a seedy part of the last safe City to see a(n illegal) race, either.

Amanda nods, still looking down. "Probably not."

Andal slings his arm around Amanda and grips Cayde's shoulder, pulling them in. He whispers, "What if we don't go off planet?"

Amanda's smile brightens immensely, and Cayde knew there was no way they'd be able to tell her no. He also knew there was a pretty decent chance Zavala would absolutely murder them for this later, but that was status quo.

"We can't be gone long," Cayde says back, looking down at the girl between them, "But we can probably do some 'aerial surveillance' of Trostland, if you know what I mean."

-/

When they return to the last hangar docking bay on the far side of the Tower, there are two figures waiting for them. One looks generally exasperated, reclining in a rolling chair that obviously belonged to a service technician in a manner belonging to a queen regent.

The two Hunters are whooping, laughing, praising the blonde girl who who brought down the nondescript ship as natural as breathing while they descend from the cockpit to the concrete.

Their laughter cuts short as the slightest clunks of armor tip them off to the fact that they have company. Both fall silent and look back to the ship with a bit of a wince when an unruly mop of blonde lowers herself back in.

"Someone might want to start talking," Ikora Rey calls, her ghost illuminating the area around her. She becomes visible, examining a beautiful dagger that's normally concealed in her boot. "He's been pacing for about an hour now."

Andal sighs. "And why, pray tell, are you here, Ikora?"

"I," She emphasizes, "Am the one who prevented him from-"

Zavala growls. "Ikora."

She scoffs, scandalized. "What? I'm on your side." She crosses her arms.

Cayde strolls leisurely into the fray. "Give me a break. We were totally safe. Told them we were going and everything."

"To dinner," Zavala says angrily. "Not off the damn planet for some joyride!" In the cockpit, Amanda curls up in the seat. She isn't a fan of his angry voice, or the little tremors it incites in her hands. "You know better!"

"Calm down, we didn't even go to orbit. Just flew around the EDZ." Cayde's hands are up in a surrendering position, but the tone of his voice is lax. He doesn't want to make a big deal of this. "Can we talk about this? Maybe, I dunno, without yelling?"

"This," The Titan says, voice raised, "Is not even CLOSE to yelling."

Andal steps between the two before it does actually come to yelling. "Let it go, both of you. There were… reasons why we didn't stay in the City."

"And those were?"

"We couldn't go to the racetrack," Cayde says. Andal hisses his hame.

From the other side of them, Ikora supplies, "That… doesn't sound like any better of an idea."

Amanda bites her lip squeezes her arms around her good leg and ignores the bad feeling starting in her leg. The pain helps her focus a little better on something besides the obvious cues to a panic attack that could not have worse timing while they fight over her actions below. She closes her eyes and hopes they stop soon so she can just go back to her room. She never should have gone out with them. And she can't get out of the ship on her own, because she can't walk, and she'll absolutely fall if she tries to use the crutches to get out of the ship herself. It makes her burn with shame and her stomach churn. She's so freaking useless. She shouldn't even be here.

They continue their 'debate' below, on the concrete floor. "So, instead of going down to a shady racetrack to place bets, you decided on a continental exploration." Zavala's tone is still highly irritated, but not yelling. It's the quieter angry. The more potentially explosive one. "She almost died, or did you two forget that part? Were you going to let her get on one of them with one leg, too?"

There's a sigh. "Zavala," Andal says quietly. "That's enough." Hotheadedness is only going to hurt this situation.

"It's not. You two imbeciles are-"

Andal nudges Cayde. "Sorry," The human says for them both, with a sharp look at the Exo. "We're sorry."

"You're absolutely just saying that," Ikora grouses, half mediator, half instigating. She's literally datamining the conversation. "Why?"

Cayde rolls his optics in a rather deadpan fashion. "Because this is fucking stupid. She was able to do whatever she wanted before this."

"And look where it got her." The Warlock's eyes are calculating, focused on the Exo as she speaks. "Not exactly a place someone wants to be."

"Well, whose fault is that?" Cayde fires back immediately and immediately winces as he looks at the Commander's darkening expression. It's like someone has doused cold water on him. Any trace of previous malice is erased. "I - shit. I didn't mean that," He immediately says.

The Awoken man's skin pulses in his frustration with white-blue aural patterns that shift. "I have admitted my part in all this. You two are not helping, considering how many jobs you've done with her - a child, at that." He's practically spitting as finishes speaking. "How good that must have been for her, all things considering, and the things that you know-"

"Watch it." Cayde pushes back Andal and steps into Zavala's face. "You want to talk about that, you don't do it here. Amanda-"

"Ah yes," Ikora interrupts helpfully, still reclining on the chair she's been on. "Where is she, by the way?"

The three men look at each other, immediately guilt-stricken.

"Amanda?" Andal calls, tentatively.

Silence.

Cayde sighs and hops up onto the wing of the ship, peering down into the open cabin. "Fuck. Kid, we're just blowing off steam. Didn't mean to forget about you up here."

"Get me out of this ship," She says, quietly. Too quietly for the rest of them to hear her.

"We're not mad at you," He replies as he complies with her request, easily lifting her with one arm and grabbing her crutches with the other from behind the seats. "It's been a stressful time."

"Yeah," She agrees, and keeps her fists clenched to prevent them from seeing them shake. "I get it." Her tone is flat. When he sets her on the ground and hands them to her, she wastes no time in heading back in the direction from which they'd come to get to the hangar. Immediately all three men jump to follow her.

Ikora shakes her head, mumbling something about men as fools as Amanda ignores all three of their attempts to tell her that they're sorry, instead telling all of them to leave her alone. "I will walk her back," The mocha-skinned Warlock volunteers as the three are all telling Amanda that she can't go back alone, the only thing they all clearly agree on. "It's clear you three have some things to work out amongst yourselves."

The second the two females are alone in the elevator, Ikora sneaks a glance at the girl. She's very clearly trying to keep herself together. It's a brave face. She sighs. Children are absolutely not her strong point, almost-mostly adult children or otherwise.

"They mean well," She finally says. "They care very much for you."

She nods, but doesn't reply.

"Men, unfortunately, do not always understand the subtleties of sensitive situations. Cayde and Andal probably shouldn't have taken you out so soon," She concedes. "However, if you had seen Zavala when he came into the briefing room after discovering that you were gone, you'd have thought we were at war. He was terrified. Not as terrified as he was that first night - the night they brought you in, my Hidden tell me. I've never seen the Commander cry. Don't think I'd like to," She admits. "They said he bawled like a baby when the doctors told him they weren't sure you could be saved. I'm surprised he even lets you out of his sight, if that's the case."

Her hands tremble, the grip on her crutches tightening despite their shaking. "I didn't mean to make him worry." Whether she's apologizing for her first bit of time spent at the Tower or the day's actions, she isn't specific. "Jus' want ta feel normal," She admits.

Ikora's chuckle is warm. "I get the feeling your normal and everyone else's is a bit different. Even before this."

"Comin' from a Guardian," She says softly, "I feel like that's a moot point."

""Touché." Ikora looks down at her at the same time she looks up. The Warlock realizes that she's never actually introduced herself. "You may already know-"

"Ikora Rey," She says, with a little nod up to the woman. "Heard plenty aboutcha. Good things," Amanda continues. "And not to play the knife game with you."

"Cayde?"

She smiles, a tiny quirk of lips. "Andal." She can't maintain it long, and resumes her lip-bit expression that's holding tears at bay.

"Smart man."

"Sometimes," She says, forlornly.

Ikora frowns. She really has no idea what else to say.

-/

"I don't think this is a good idea," He says to her. "I mean, I know I owe you a favor and all, but are you really sure?"

She clenches her fists. "Yeah. It's for the best."

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. She's paying him, so he really can't refuse. "Well, Didi's transmatted what you had here to my garage, and we'll pick it up there after we hit your place. You really don't want to stay? Seems like you got it pretty good here."

"I," She takes a deep breath. "I'm only a problem here, the longer I stay." She says quietly. "I don't want to cause more trouble."

She looks away from the looming Traveler out the window, and back at the uneasy Hunter. He's lingering by the door. "Well, let's go then. There's no one nearby, if you're looking to prevent any goodbyes." She nods.

She puts the envelope on the nightstand and lets him hold the door for her. Doesn't look back. She can't let them stop their lives to take care of her, and she can't stand them fighting about her. She's absolutely not worth it. She ain't worth much these days, really.

Forward momentum. Wherever the Hell it takes her.


	11. Guilt

"You ever gonna tell me how you lost that leg of yours?"

She tightens her grip around his middle and shakes her head into his back. "Long story," She says over the squalling sound of the Sparrow's engine. "You don't want to know."

He lowers his head and leans into the handlebars of the machine as it glides gracefully out and around to the western sector of the City. The roads are mostly empty at this hour, and he's taken great care to conceal his appearance - and even his sparrow - per her instructions.

When they arrive at a familiar garage, he gets off and assists her as well. She knows the place well enough, and makes her way over to a bench covered with prototypes half built and components that are both salvage and new. "Anything good comin' outta that brain of yours?"

He shrugs, with a cocky grin. "Couple'a ideas for boots, but nothing concrete yet. Trying to figure out a way to get further without more energy output." She nods, picking up one of the half assembled sleeves that no-doubt go into a boot. "As for Sparrows, I have some ideas for improving that Hastilude of yours, but now isn't the time for that."

"'Spose not," She says with a sigh.

Didi flickers into sight, making her appearance known. "Uh, did we do something we shouldn't have?" She asks with the slightest quiver to her voice. "Hunter comms at the Tower just went on red-alert."

Amanda shakes her head. "No. You two are fine." She crutches further into the makeshift workshop in the back and drops to the ground in front of the remainder of her property, all of which has been transmatted from both the room she once rented in the City, from before, and the few items Cayde has brought from that room to her hospital room in the Tower.

It's never been much, and for good reason.

She finds a decent sized pack and begins to throw belongings into it. It barely fits a third of what she has, but that's okay. She's not going to need it, where she's going. "Do me a favor?" She asks, lifting up a radio from the side, and setting it beside her newly packed bag. "Burn the rest of this."

"You recreating your identity or something? You're not in trouble, are you?"

"No," She says softly. "'m not. Cayde and Andal are probably going to come here lookin' for me. You haven't seen me. Don't know where I'd go." It's true. She hasn't told him, so he doesn't know.

He reaches down and picks up the radio, turning it over. Eyes widen as he traces the insignia and numbers on the bottom. "Uh, why do you have an old radio like this?"

She pushes herself up to standing and yanks it from his grip. "Don't worry about it."

Marcus smirks. "Did you steal it from the Commander?" His tone is playful, amused. "That's his call-sign engraved on the bottom. It's an identifying number."

She glares at him as she wraps her arms around it protectively. "No, I didn' steal it. Jus' happened to find itself in my possession." She clips it to her pack gently. "You got the rover I asked for?"

He nods. "Yes. I did." He lets the radio subject drop. "You really didn't have to give me that much glimmer," He said. "Really. You gave me a lot. And the Sparrow in that cache you sent me to? Primo. Awfully nice gifts to leave your ol' pal Marcus for something that isn't a big deal. You pay all your friends this good for fun?"

"I'm not paying you for fun, I'm paying you to keep your mouth shut. People are going t'ask about me. I don't want them in my business."

The unruly Hunter shrugs and turns the light on for the garage, illuminating an old rover. Nothing fancy. She strides to it with a few swings of her crutches and lifts the hood. Nothing too exciting in it, but it'll move well enough. Just what she asked for. She opens the door and looks into the cabin of the vehicle. Automatic, like she asked for. And the interior was well-enough intact. As an added bonus, it didn't smell, either. Perfection.

"You've outdone yourself," She says to him. "No flags?"

Didi swung by and bobbed in the affirmative. "No trackers, no identifying information on it."

Amanda's shoulder-length hair bobbed as she nodded her approval. "Much obliged, friends," She says to the Hunter and his Ghost. "Burn that stuff, please. And maybe take that friend of yours - Bast, was it? - to do some patrols for the next week or two if you wanna avoid questions from the crew."

"Yeah, yeah. Where you gonna go?"

"Can't tell ya. You'll roll over on me, I know you."

His smile is crooked. "Not on purpose."

"I know," She hollers over the rumble of the rover coming to life. "I'm just eliminating negative outcomes. Ain't that what you say?"

He shakes his head. "You're a riot, you know that? Take care, kid."

"Yeah," She says, eyes hard and set on the opening door ahead. "You too, Ren. You too."

-/

He can't recall how many times he's read this letter. He hasn't let it out of his hands for longer than it took for Andal to read it - and that's only because he couldn't bear to read the words aloud. It was all getting better, he thought. She was getting better. This was supposed to make things easier for her. Why would she do this?

"Sir?"

It made no sense. She said she wanted to stay with him, live here, in the Tower. And yet, two weeks later, she'd disappeared in the dark of night, leaving only a note that was a cross between a thank you and an apology. He couldn't place her reasoning. She did not owe anyone an apology. He had been angry with Andal and Cayde for not placing her well being first, but that had no reflection on her.

"...Sir? Are you listening?"

He shook his head. Her words were all over the place, her little scrawl still the neat and tidy print he recalled from her sketchbooks from her workshop. Maybe that was where she'd gone?

"Zavala!"

The Commander looked up into nonplussed brown eyes. "Sloane. Yes," He said distractedly. "Go ahead."

"I've been for the last twenty minutes," She groused, motioning for him to sit at his own desk. She was really starting to feel like his superior right now. "I don't think you really give a rat's ass about the state of our war with the Eliksni right now."

"I do, I-"

"Sit," She says, with an edge that has his eyebrow creeping up. He uses that tone with wandering Hunters. "And tell me what's actually going on here. Unlike last time, I'd like to be in the know." When he sits behind his desk, she sits on one of the two chairs that face it on the other side.

He throws the letter across the desk at her, and his shoulders drop when she picks it up to read. She doesn't comment on that as she scans over the lines of handwriting, though she definitely sees him bend under the apparent stress.

The Deputy Commander is not good at the subtler, tender emotions of the spectrum. She knows anger, rage, and happiness. She's well versed in grief, but guilt: Guilt is something she is a champion in.

Just so happens, the kid's letter is the very definition of guilt.

"What did you manage to get from this?" She asks her superior, holding up the open letter.

"She does not think she's well suited to living in the Tower."

"Yes, she says that," Sloane agrees, looking down at the paper. "'I don't think living in the Tower is something a mortal like myself can adapt to,'" Sloane reads. "'I'm sorry for the inconvenience-'"

"Enough. I've read the letter." His fingers are laced together in front of his mouth, elbows propped on the desk while he leans forward over the desk. "I've read it countless times, Sloane."

Brown eyes regard him, appraising. She taps the paper with her free hand. "She feels guilty."

"What?" He looks at her.

"This isn't an 'I don't think I'm suited for this,' letter, at all. She doesn't think she deserves what you're trying to give her." Sloane hands back the paper. "Read it again, but use guilt as the lens."

The Commander's body is tense as he rereads the letter yet again. "Guilt," He muses aloud. "But why? For what crime?"

"Not for some crime," Sloane answers when she notices he's finished reading. "She's guilty for disrupting your life. Andal and Cayde's, my own, Ikora's… she sees herself as a burden."

"And you know this?"

"Spent plenty of time there, myself," She says with a pointed glance. "Wasn't always a Deputy Commander, though it feels like I've been stuck with you forever," She continues with a smirk. "Pretty sure I told you once: I started out as a grunt who knew how to punch things and get civilians killed. No skills, basically a liability..."

"That's not true."

"Obviously. It's survivor's guilt." She shakes her head and her eyes widen fractionally as she gives him a look that says as much. "I heard about that little quarrel you had with Andal and Cayde, last week. Ever talk to her about it?"

He looks at her, dejected.

"No, then." Sloane crosses her arms and repositions herself in the plush chair. "Look. She flew a ship on one of my - our missions. She did it. She's a kid... But she's not actually a kid, really." She pauses, and thinks about what she wants to say. "She's a young woman who very clearly has some psychological problems. PTSD, to say the least. Depression, probably. She lost her damn leg. Rightfully so."

"I… am aware of that," He says softly. "She was having flashbacks while we were attempting to rescue her. She is tough, but that does not mean she is not sick."

"I can't imagine what her life was before-" The Commander's nod interrupts her. "Explains the panic attack, then. Knew something was fishy about that. So where is she?"

"I don't know."

"Cayde and Andal haven't figured it out?"

"No."

"She doesn't have that many friends who could get her out of the tower," Sloane growls. "This should not be difficult."

"They've asked Marcus Ren, he's the only one they can think of who would not raise suspicion."

Sloane rolls her eyes. "Marcus came to see me a few days ago for some patrol work in the EDZ. He's out there now." Her finger taps her cheek. "But, Enoch is here, and he might know something."

"Enoch Bast?"

"Bast and Ren have been doing jobs together for a bit. Rumor is that they're sweet on each other. Cute, right?" She ended deadpan, though personally she didn't care who did what so long as it didn't impact business as usual.

"You're kidding." Not cute, his face says. This is business. Not gossip hour.

She laughs at the thoughts clear on his face. "Sorry, sorry. Trying to diffuse the tension." She clears her throat. "I'll work on this, okay?" Seriousness bleeds into her expression. "Try not to worry too much. You have work to do here, too."

His mouth is set in a firm line. "That's not something I can agree to."

She nods. "I know. Humor me."

-/

Nothing stops him from slipping out of the Tower well past any respectable hour. He's certain that if the Speaker catches wind of this, he'll be spoken to about duty again. He hadn't expected this to come with such gratuitous complications. He knew it would be difficult, but Cayde's 'keep her here' comment was niggling at his consciousness with every breath. The Exo had said he didn't think she'd cut and run, but the more he thought about Sloane's take, and read that infernal letter… he scrubbed his face with a large palm. No wonder the Traveler's blessings upon them rendered them unable to procreate. He considered himself responsible enough and even he couldn't hack it at parenting.

He frowned. That's what it was, after all. Parenting. Best to get it out there in the open space in his mind, wrap his brain around it. Once he got her back to the Tower, there was going to be a hell of a lot of it, if he had his say in the matter. It was all he could hope for that she would be there, since her other haunts had turned up empty. Cayde and Andal hadn't known about this one, so it seemed to be their best bet.

He walked through a deserted ward of the City, decrepit, war-torn, and looking about as haggard as it had when he'd frequented it years ago. He didn't have to think about the way. He knew it by heart. He made one left, another, and then a right. Most of the structure was still intact.

But, Traveler, was it scorched.

The blackness that comes with old flames - old, hot flames - marred the cracked windowless frames and snaked up from the window onto the exposed brick. Aashimah spun out and flashed beams of light onto the majority of the old home.

"Relatively intact. Golden Age brick is a marvel," She chirps, shell segments spinning. "Shall we?"

They press in the open doorway quietly. The parts not exposed to the sky are saturated in ash and blackened char. Slag and metal are melted to the ground, and based on the metal's color and size, it's likely a vehicle of some sort. Likely a sparrow, if the smallish nubs that were likely handlebars once are any indication.

"Everything in here is broken," Aashimah says. "Rather, anything that's left. Looks pretty picked through if you ask me. And not recently, either."

Zavala doesn't speak, doesn't know what he actually expected to find here. His eyes are drawn to the furthest corner of the dwelling. The ashes of a ruined cupboard, with only the outline of the baseboards left. Soot covers the remnants of a crochet blanket under some scrap of charred wood and brick. His throat constricts. He remembers making that exact blanket, giving it to her on a cold night because he was afraid she'd freeze before the Dawning and he'd be too late to give it to her.

Aashimah spins her shell as she assesses. "Oh," She says softly, illuminating boards underneath it, "See that?" She queries.

It's a baseboard that's slightly askew. Zavala gingerly pushes the tattered blanket aside and pulls on the baseboard. It breaks with little resistance, already ruined by both fire and water damage.

Concealed beneath are ledgers. The ones on top are mildly singed, but the ones furthest down are fully intact. Sketchbooks are mixed in. They're all dated. It's a picture he can put together. Doesn't help his current situation, but he'll have her transmat them back to his office anyway.

"Zavala." He lifts his head, sharply.

A brilliant optic blinks up at a broken, dangling camera.

"Does it still work?" He asks, but she's already whirling around it to see what secrets it holds.

"Can I tell you no?" She answers, several minutes later. "I don't want you to see what I've just downloaded."

"Aashimah."

She spins slowly, the electrical din she makes like a melody. Shakes her tiny body in the negative. "It'll break your heart," She whispers, nudging his cheek. The sentinel stands resolute. She's not thrilled, even if she knew how he would respond that way. She huffs. "Fine. I need a minute to optimize it."

He finally acquiesced, and they transmat the remaining books before moving back outside. She spins with a heavy buzz, and proceeds to fast-travel them back to the tower. He sits at his desk while she works to reproduce the slightly distorted feed on the wall.

He watches it only once.

A mop of blonde on hands and knees - young - so much younger than the one who's run on him - shaking and begging them to stop. The laugh of grown men sorting through a pauper's meager treasures, heckling her. Insulting her for taking their work. Black and blue marks on tiny arms. The lewd pantomiming behind her. The inevitable sparks, the fuel lit, the fire ablaze.

Screaming. Grunting. Pleading.

He forces himself to listen to her pleas - straining to hear them over the roar of the fire and distance between herself and the camera at the end. Aashimah has enhanced the feed as much as possible, although he almost wishes she hadn't. He bites the knuckle on his index finger to prevent the gasp that wants to come out. Maybe it's a gag. His stomach is lurching. He isn't sure.

Worst of all, the last thing the monitoring equipment catches before the heat of another small explosion renders the feed dead gives him chills.

" _The night is young, little mechanic. We haven't even started to have our fun with you. It's time you get what you deserve."_

He doesn't need a warped camera feed to know what happened next.


	12. The Brink

"Listen to me, and listen carefully," Sloane is saying, her eyes dark and hard, her arm wrapped around his neck in a rather constricting headlock. She would not actually harm him, but she would definitely stand there with him in that position until he begged her to end his suffering. "You are going to tell me everything you know. _Now._ "

Marcus holds up both hands in an apologetic way, casting a glance at Enoch, who looks incredibly guilty. Sloane had just threatened to deploy him to Mars for the next two centuries if he didn't lead her to Marcus. He had no choice but to force his Hunter friend to fold.

"She paid me to pick her up. I've worked with her before. She's paid me for birds, done work on some of mine. Didi and I like her well enough but it's not like we're super close."Sloane released him and he worked out the tightness in his neck as he returned to his usual height.

"Well, it's in the Vanguard's best interests that we return her to the Tower. Perhaps you should have checked before you picked her up from our _exclusive_ hospital? What if she had been a suspect to a crime?"

"Flygirl is only dangerous if she's racing you. There's not a malicious bone in her body."

"'Flygirl,'" Sloane quotes, testing out the nickname, "Is recovering from a serious injury. Or did you miss it-"

"Nope, didn't miss it." He motions to his right leg with a slashing motion. "Kind of obvious."

"You have a way to get in touch with her? Or any idea where she is?"

He sighed. "She'll never work with me again, if I contact her for you."

Sloane shook her head. "I'm sure she'll forgive you. I, however, will not. The Commander is rather serious about her safe return."

"The Commander?" Enoch looks at Marcus, surprise on his face. "Like Commander Zavala, the Commander? Dude, what did you get us caught up into?"

" _Dude_ , yourself, Bast." Marcus rolls his eyes. "I asked her why she had his radio and she didn't tell me. It's not about the radio, is it?"

"The radio?" Sloane pauses. She turns her palm up and her Ghost immediately appears. "Contact the Commander. Ask him about the radio." A shiver, one flash into light, and some sparks later, her Ghost reappears.

"His Ghost thinks we might be able to hack it remotely. Will send you coordinates."

Sloane nods, and regards the unlikely duo. "If they can hack this radio, you'll both be lucky."

"She said she wasn't in trouble," Marcus says defensively. "I just gave her a rover. Nothing crazy."

The female Titan nods, and picks up a mostly broken data-pad on his workbench. "She's not really in trouble. I think."

"You think." The male Titan looks perplexed.

Sloane sighs. It's obvious this isn't her usual cup of tea. "It's a difficult situation. Need to know information, Bast." The lightest warg of sound from her Ghost comes with an updated target in her HUD. Target is South by Southeast. "Looks like cyber team was successful."

As Sloane turns to leave, Didi chimes, "You know, you could come around once and a while for fun! I know you like a good Sparrow as much as the rest of us!" The Deputy Commander raises a fist in acknowledgement as she leaves, and Didi scoffs. "She's always got her knickers in a bunch. Thank goodness I've got you as my Guardian, Marcus. I think I'd die of boredom as her partner."

Both male Guardians laugh, before looking at each other. They'd dodged a bullet there. Things were never dull around this damn City. It made patrols a welcome break, once in a while.

-/

Sloane does not make a sound as she enters the building. She follows her Ghost's intel via their neural link. Third story, last room on the right. The rover was parked a block over, and there's the obvious scratch marks from crutches on the floor in front of the door. She knocks tentatively. She knows this whole thing needs to be handled with caution - which is why she's the one doing it, not the Commander. Even if he means well. He's an absolute wreck. This requires a lighter touch.

There's a thump, and the clink of crutches, before the door opens a crack. The girl gasps, and Sloane bites her lip. She doesn't look well - like she hasn't slept since she left the Tower. There's a haunted look in her eyes and they are very bloodshot.

"Can I come in?"

Her left hand twitches on the crutch she's holding onto. She tries to peer around the larger woman. "Who's with you?" Her throat sounds incredibly scratchy, like she has a cold.

"My Ghost. No one else."

"Does Zavala know you're here?"

She shrugs. "At this second, no. He has me looking for you, so I'll have to report back to him at some point. Can I come in?"

Amanda shrugs, saying hoarsely, "You'll let yourself in if I don't, right?"

Sloane sighs and replies, "No, but I'll probably end up standing here until Zavala does."

"C'mon then." She undoes the chain and pushes the door open.

The room is small, obviously meant for only one inhabitant. Sloane makes sure to move away from the doorway instead of backing up to it like she'd prefer. Amanda limps back to the half made bed, and flops onto the side of it. She's bundled up in clothes like she's feverish. She's obviously not taking good care of herself.

"I'm sure you know why I'm here."

Amanda nods, not looking at her. "To take me back. But I can't."

"Why?"

"I don't want to mess anything up for the rest of them."

"You won't."

"They're all fighting bout me."

"They fight no matter what." Sloane doesn't buy it. Truly. They fight over literally anything, without anyone's help.

"The Speaker's concerned about me being there 'fecting Zavala's sense of duty," Amanda finally admits, after several minutes of silence. The wheeze in her voice is mildly distressing. "Heard Cayde and Andal talking about it."

"Idiots," Sloane rolls her shoulders back, kneeling in front of the teen on the edge of the bed so that they are at eye level with each other. "Look. The Speaker is concerned because Zavala chose you. You're a brat, if you ask me. But you're his brat. Zavala is beside himself right now, worried about you. Fuck the Speaker. There were plenty before him, and there'll be plenty after him. You don't need his personal approval. Kapeesh?"

The girl looks at her with big green eyes. "That's what you think?"

Sloane puffs her chest, levels Amanda with a serious gaze. "That's what I know."

The ensuing staring contest is severe, despite the younger blinking several times. "I trust you," Amanda says with a rasp. "Titans don't lie."

"To a fault," She agrees. "I piss a lot of people off that way."

She nods. "They just can't handle the truth." She winces and reaches for her stump, rubbing it gingerly.

"You okay to ride back with me to the Tower? I'm gonna get pinged any second now, and you should really get checked out." She blows a puff of air into her bangs as she stands. "If we go before he contacts me, I don't necessarily have to tell him. Means he might not be waiting at the gates and you can talk in private without the whole tower knowing your business?"

Amanda nods gratefully. "Please Just need a second for the cramp to pass," She grits, rubbing it harder. A little later, she's shoving Sloane outside so she can change into the only remaining clean clothes she has.

The Guardian lifts her gently when they go downstairs. She flushes in embarrassment. "Sorry I'm so useless," She murmurs, before Sloane sets her down at the bottom.

"You're not useless. Stop beating yourself up. It's stupid."

"Yeah. Thanks," Amanda says with a wince when she bumps her bad leg with one of the crutches. "Says the Titan with two legs."

"You still have two, one is just shorter than the other." Sloane isn't feeling the self-pity. "You lived. Plenty of Guardians wouldn't. They'd chicken out and let their Ghosts take away the pain. You don't get that luxury. It makes you tougher than the rest of us. Takes balls to keep on keeping on. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

She helps Amanda onto the Sparrow first, before hopping on in front of the girl, who wraps lanky arms around her waist and leans into the back of her chest armor. She should have a helmet, the Titan thinks. Sloane removes the piece that transmats onto her head automatically, twisting back to face the girl. "Here."

Amanda looks at her. "It's okay."

"Put it on." The Titan's tone brokers no argument, and Amanda caves. The helmet is a little bit too big, but it does the trick and smells like citrus shampoo. She leans back against the Titan, who starts the bird and lets it squeal before they jet away. Once she gets to cruising speed, Sloane takes one hand off the handlebars and squeezes it over Amanda's interlocked ones.

It's with this action that Amanda decides she likes Sloane well enough. She's passionate and serious and doesn't take any shit. And, she's not terrible at driving like Andal is, or a speed demon like Cayde who has no finesse. She really needs details on how Zavala is on one of these things.

They take the long way up the Tower. Slone walks with her quietly, not upset that the girl's pace gets slower as they get closer to their destination. "You feeling okay?"

She nods, stifling a cough. "I'm alright."

They continue down the hallway until they reach an area that requires a code. Sloane enters her own, and the doors whoosh open in a rush of air. "I'm going to take you to the Commander's office first. He can choose what to do with you. Unless you think you need to be checked out immediately."

Her tongue peeks out from her lips as she thinks. "Nah," She decides. "I should probably get the hard part over with, huh?"

"I don't think it will be as hard as you think," Sloane says sincerely. "But I do want to tell you something."

Amanda stops, and looks over at the Deputy Commander keeping to her left. "Yeah?"

"If," She sighs. She can rally troops, but pep talks on these sorts of things aren't really her forte. "If you feel like you're going to do this again, or… whatever, just talk to someone. If I'm free, I'm all ears. Don't run. You're not a coward."

She nods. "I'll try."

"Good girl." Sloane pats her back once, then clears her throat. "The Commander's office is the next door on the right. Ready?"

The blonde shakes her head. "Not really, but I guess I gotta do this."

The Titan can tell. "I'll get the door."

Sloane knocks once, and hears the gruff affirmation that they may enter. Amanda looks up at her and nods. Sloane nods back and opens the door.

"Sloane. I didn't think-"

Amanda crutches with Sloane into the large office. She's trembling again, but she's not looking back or shrinking away. She's made of tougher stuff, the Deputy Commander thinks fondly enough, realizing that she's falling for the girl, the same as the rest of them.

"I'll take it from here," Amanda says with a quiet rasp to the woman beside her. "If that's okay with you?"

The Deputy Commander nods. "I'll leave you to it. Remember what I said."

"Will do."

Sloane regards her superior with a cool nod. His eyes are on the girl, shock, relief, grief evident. "Commander." It's like he doesn't see her, and that's fine. She has a feeling this one's going to be too touchy-feely for her, anyways, and lets herself out without waiting for a response.

"Where have you been?" He asks, when they're alone. His voice is shaking.

Amanda's eyes water. "A boarding house in the South-Central ward," She says quietly, sure to keep her eyes up. Once they drop to the floor, she isn't sure she'll be able to raise them back up to face him again.

"Why?"

She looks at him. His eyes are unbearably bright, more than usual, and she realizes that there's a reason for it. There's tears in his eyes. She's the reason for them. 'You're a brat,' Sloane's words echo in her head. 'But you're his brat.' The confirmation makes something twist in her belly.

"I didn't wanna mess anything up, for you or anybody else," She admits. "But by tryin' not to I just made everythin' worse, didn't I?" Her voice gets squeaky and pinched toward the when her throat constricts and she fights the urge to cry.

"Foolish child." He shakes his head, and his eyes are less glossy when he does. "Come here."

She treks over to him, and he guides her to the couch tucked off in the corner. It's got a cozy crochet blanket on it that's orange and blue, and she sighs as she's able to take a load off her sore arms and leg. Her other leg is aching dully, but it's been the constant and she ignores it. He sits down beside her, his body turned to face her.

"You look horrible," She quips, looking at him up close. "You're not sleeping."

He shakes his head, murmuring something like, "Unbelievable," before he says, "Neither are you. And you've fallen ill." She doesn't deny it. He tucks a stray lock behind her ear and looks down at her.

"Are you mad at me?" She asks quietly, looking away.

The Commander sighs. "No, Amanda. I am not angry. I am afraid."

She cocks her head at him. "You? Of what?"

"That you will do this again and I will not be able to find you. That something will happen to you. That I am not making you feel safe enough."

She reaches for one of his hands. "No. It's not your fault. I'm stupid. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't want to cause more trouble. I just thought if I got outta' dodge it would make things easier."

"I thought you truly didn't want to stay here."

"I want it more than anything," She shyly admits. "But I'm not a Guardian. I don't deserve-"

"You deserve more than I can give you," He says fiercely. "You deserved to have my protection against those scoundrels-" He closes his eyes and closes his other hand over hers, so that both of his shelter her littler one. This isn't the time for that. Her gaze is heavy on him. "You deserve to be protected and cherished." He sighs. "Allow me to do so. Please."

She swallows. "But, I'm all messed up," She says in a whimper. "I can't handle-"

"We will get through it," He promises. "Together."

She nods, and curls up against the back of the couch, pulling her good leg up and her cheek to her knee. She sits silently for a long while, processing something. Then, "Can I tell you something?" She worries her lip. "It's... something I did. Somethin' bad."

His heart beats in a frantic staccato in his chest, but he nods. "Anything."

She nods, tilting her head to stare straight ahead. "I, uh, _tried-_ " She takes a deep breath, clears her scratchy throat. She pulls her hand out of his and unwinds the familiar red scarf around her neck, handing it to him. The line is purple-red, the intentions behind it clear.

"How?" His voice quivers again, and he keeps his eyes trained on her face and not on the mottled bruising that rises above and below the laceration line. Her eyes are bloodshot for more reasons than lack of sleep, and it's like someone's dropped the floor from underneath him.

"Shower," She works up the nerve to explain. "The rod was rusty and broke. I think I lost consciousness. I kinda... woke up on the floor."

He pulls her to him, and it isn't until she feels twin saltwater drops on her cheeks that she realizes that he is crying. That's not accurate though, because she can feel the sobs like small earthquakes in his chest, shuddering through her tiny frame.

"Don't cry," She tells him, swiping at his cheeks with cold fingertips. "It's okay, I'm fine. 'm here. Throat doesn't even hurt 'nymore." That's a lie, told to try to make him feel better. "I realized I was an idiot," She continues. "Y'all went through all that trouble to save me, and here I was throwing away all your effort. I won't do it again."

He only cries harder at that, and she looks up at him, his eyes are scrunched so tightly closed she wasn't sure he'd be able to open them again. He does though, making no effort to quell his tears or wipe them away. "Look at me, Amanda."

She does, his tone rendering it impossible not to comply, though it is incomparable to the depths of his luminescent eyes brimming with tears.

"My sweet, precious child," He swallows hard, trying to find the right words, trying not to shout or frighten her with the force of his emotions. "I do not care about the effort it took to extract you from that wretched garage. I care about you." His nose is nearly touching her own, he's so close to her, but he maintains eye contact. He has to tell her. She has to know. "I love you. Your life is so unbelievably precious. Please believe me. I beg of you."

"You-" She pauses, stunned. "You love me?"

He nods, and his chin quivers from the effort not to crumple into sobs again. "So very much," He whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

His tenderness is her undoing.

Strong arms wrap around her as she sobs pitifully, air coming out in gasps between hiccups and coughs - it sounds wretched. The Commander does not hide his own emotions, they've surpassed that point now.. His own grief is more easily manageable thanks to his age and experience, but he will not deny his heartbreak. Eventually her sobs die down, and become soft, little rasps. Her hands come to the front of her throat, where the bruising is the worst, and the laceration is the deepest. He shudders.

"What do you need?" He asks her quietly.

She shakes her head. "This," she answers, dropping her hands and holding onto him tighter. Her throat is really starting to hurt, but she isn't willing to move right now.

"I'm proud of you," He tells her, when her grasp eases around his middle. She blinks up at him in confusion. "For telling me," He elaborates. She looks away. "No, look at me, please," He says quieter. "I know this is difficult. We... need to talk about these things. We need to continue to do so. And why you feel this way. It's important. You're important."

She nods, and looks down. He puts a hand on her head, and it makes her straighten. "You did this once," She says quietly, putting both hands atop his on her head. She closes her eyes. "Before. You probably don't remember-"

"I do," He intones warmly. "Shaxx had called me away. I believe you were trying to convince me to let you fix my sparrow?"

"It was the first time someone touched me that wasn't scary since my Ma 'n Pa," She whispers to him, her scrunched shut in memory. "I was so scared and alone, in the City," She said. It seemed to apply both then and now. "But you always made me feel safe. I knew I-" She shakes her head and opens her eyes, casting a glance up at him. "I didn't wanna scare ya off, some little girl all clingy-like," She coughs. "But I do," She says with a nod, refocusing on his face. "I love you, too. So ya know. I'm sorry."

"I am, too." She relaxes against his chest and he allows it, smoothing her hair gently for a few moments. He hears the high-pitched rasp in her breathing now that it's silent and sighs. "You're going to have to go back to the med-bay for a bit," He says softly.

She nods into his chest. "I know."

"I will be limiting some of your interactions," He says, just as quiet. "You'll have a guard posted at your door if I am not there."

"What?" She looks up at him in astonishment. "That's insane. I don't need-"

"Amanda." His eyes are serious. "You've just told me something very important, that you did, unsupervised, after being able to run out of the Tower in the middle of the night. I am certain, had Marcus known exactly what you were going to do, he would not have come to get you for all of the glimmer in the system." She flushed hotly. "You aren't going to be locked in that room all day and night. You have my word. You will, however, have someone with you at all times. Without exception. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, okay," She replies meekly, then yawns.

He pulls the blanket down off the back of the couch, and pulls it over her. "You can breathe alright?" He designs to confirm, to which she takes a deep breath in and out before nodding into him again. He hears the raspy wheeze again and tries not to think about why for a few heartbeats. "We can wait a few moments. I'll handle some things before I take you over."

He repositions so that her head is on his thigh, and she's curled up on two-thirds of the couch. He puts his palm on her head, and she relaxes immediately. She's asleep less than a minute later.

Aashimah flashes into corporeal existence silently, her eye flickering in an emotional way. "Oh Guardian," She says to him, "We'll get her through this." She flutters to his cheek and nuzzles him in her way. He leans into it, a rarity. "You did really well with her. I can't imagine-" She floats over the girl, her neck still visible. "This kid," She twitches. "We've got our work cut out for us. She's worth it."

He pulls the crochet blanket up to her chin. "Definitely." He changes tracks. "Send for Ikora. Tell her to be discreet."

"On it," She bobs in midair and disappears in motes of light. He scrubs a hand over his face, erasing any evidence of his previous breakdown. No going back on this, old man, he thought to himself. And despite feeling unbelievably out of his depth, and knowing how hard this was going to be, he knew he wouldn't trade it for anything.


End file.
